


on this night and in this light

by jmcats



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Barebacking, Boxer!Liam, M/M, Notting Hill AU, Rimming, and naked niall all the time, but a bit more too, loads of literary stuff too, musical love story that's not a love story, sort of bookshop!zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-24 23:36:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 57,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1621097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmcats/pseuds/jmcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Zayn thinks, belatedly, the world probably doesn’t understand this boy at all.  They don’t see past the façade and the way he’s so much more than a pair of boxing gloves and sweat and bruises and strong fists that knock the world on its arse.</i><br/> <br/><i>He’s a little bit beautiful and so very gentle and a stammering boy underneath layers of muscles.</i></p><p>Zayn has heard and read a hundred different versions <i>a love story</i> -- except he doesn't believe in any of it.  He doesn't believe in chasing silly dreams.  Or finding a hero, a knight in shining armor.  Or <i>'and they lived happily ever after.'</i>  But this strong boy with the crinkly eyes and pink cheeks and dumb smile?  <i>He believes in him.</i>  And a little bit more, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on this night and in this light

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is definitely for Lynn, who asked me to write a _Notting Hill_ AU, because she never asks me for anything but gives me so much. It's also for everyone who has ever messaged me and said _"will you write the boxer!liam and model!zayn prompt."_ This is a combination of the two and very much something I'm terrified about posting because I don't know if I lived up to the hype of [this meme](http://turntogreyaus.tumblr.com/tagged/the-model-and-the-boxer). Thanks to [Carrie](http://tunrtogrey.tumblr.com/) for creating that epic AU for us to enjoy!
> 
> Please excuse this if this is a bit slow or boring or all of the other things that turn you off from reading. It may or may not all make sense. It's an AU so I took some liberties to change a few facts around.
> 
> And this is definitely dedicated to all of the readers who are finishing up finals/exams... maybe this will take your mind off of things?
> 
> (Title taken from "fallingforyou" by the 1975)

 

 

 

 _‘_ _Malik, you are a complete arse,’_ Niall tells him with wide blue eyes and the kind of definition behind his tone that is unmistakable, _‘you’re bloody manic and an absolute idiot if you think that lad doesn’t wholeheartedly love you, with or without your past.’_

And it’s the truest words Zayn’s ever heard – so far.

But he’s read _Wuthering Heights_ and has memorized Shakespeare and, tragically, he has considered inking the words _‘death cannot stop true love; it can only delay it for a while’_ across his ribs after Harry made him sit through three viewings of _the Princess Bride_ one weekend in September.

Yet, he knows _this_ isn’t much of a love story.  Not yet, at least.

In fact, he thinks most people would view his life as nothing but a massive _‘fuck you’_ to love before the end credits even begin to roll.

 

|+|

 

“You’re gonna be late for work,” comes from the half-open door to his tiny bedroom, bits of blonde hair pulled in every direction and large blue eyes like stars embedded in the ocean looking at him, and Niall tips up a grin even though the sun is only half-lit in the sky before adding, groggily, “ _again_ , you bastard.”

Zayn groans from beneath a valley of duvets and lumpy pillows and yesterday’s wrinkled _Captain Marvel_ shirt – and yes, he finds that ironic in the small scope of Marvel versus DC canon he’s always lived in – before peeking his head up with a middle finger already extended like a _hello_ and _is my coffee ready yet?_

Niall snorts with that bleach blonde hair looking like acid waves from the Pacific and his cheeks glowing that earthy pink they always do with tiny freckles visible across his nose.

“It’s too early,” Zayn says with a broken voice that’s heavy from exhaustion, rolling to face away from Niall but the sun opposite of him is blinding through those tragically thin curtains he bought for a few pounds.  “Don’t give me shit right now – “

“Because I’m _Zayn Malik_ and I’m moody and I’m broodier than any of Stephen King’s characters,” Niall finishes, smug and that crooked grin is inescapable –

And Zayn’s loved it since the first day they met over beers, chips and a stupid advertisement for a flatmate that Zayn should’ve never responded to.

“Fuck off,” Zayn moans but the words are twisted around his helpless smirk and Niall tiptoes into the archway in a pizza-stained Super Mario Bros t-shirt and no bottoms and –

 _Oh_.

Zayn stifles a whine and buries his eyes against the plush cotton of his pillow, waving him off.

“Nialler,” Zayn muffles into the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut until he sees green lasers and spots of Technicolor and he _shivers_ at the sight still behind his closed lids, “nobody wants to see your hard-on at this hour.”

Niall shrugs, propping a hip against the doorway with impossibly pale skin and unruly hair and his cock swaying between his thighs.

“Every right, strong, healthy lad gets a stiffy in the morning,” Niall declares, devoid of modesty or reverence for the situation, “You probably wank off to thoughts about my willy, you dolt.  I’ve seen the stains on your sheets when I wash ‘em.”

Zayn blindly chucks a pillow at him and tangles himself in the sheets for a few labored breaths before flopping onto his back, throwing an ink-stained forearm over his eyes to shield the early morning light.

“You don’t do any of the laundry,” Zayn clarifies, chewing at his dry, chapped bottom lip.  “Or any of the cleaning for that matter.”

“When I need to,” Niall corrects, dragging fingers through his fluffed hair.

Zayn snorts, nodding.  He palms his twitching cock into a comfortable state and, _damn you Niall Horan_ , he was having a right wonderful dream about that one lad from Hollyoaks with the intensely pink lips and hard eyes and hands that could stroke him into a fiery state of –

He wastes a breath on _‘nirvana’_ and waits for Niall to blurt out _‘with the lights out, it’s less dangerous here we are now, entertain us’_ before he grins and shifts against the too warm sheets beneath his spine.

“And I _need_ to tonight, so,” Niall hums, turning until Zayn can see the strong line of his back and the snowy shade of his arse, grinning over his shoulder.  “Got a date with that splendidly sexy bird Leigh-Anne, the one who works for that accounting firm near the West End.”

Zayn smiles at the ceiling fan ticking loudly above his head, mapping out the cracks in the surface surrounding it, the faded paint that’s never been replaced.

“I’m cooking for her,” Niall announces with that lopsided smile and he’s out of the doorway and around the corner before Zayn can look back.

“You’ll burn down the flat,” Zayn shouts, stretching until the ocean of linen engulfing him sways off of his limbs.

“And then we’ll go get Chinese takeaway,” Niall adds with a bent around laugh that tickles just south of Zayn’s chest.

“Take her for _Mandarin_ ,” Zayn suggests, leisurely rolling off his bed and combing fingers through his still product-stiff hair, peeling apart the mangled strands before scratching at his morning stubble.  He takes a quick glance at his lit up phone – _five messages and two missed calls, typical_ – and he knows there’s not enough time for a shave.

“What’s the difference?” Niall asks with a bark, accent thickened by the toothbrush that’s no doubt shoved over his tongue.

Zayn shrugs and grins and he’s always taken ignorance as a sign of laziness, unwillingness to achieve more in life but not with Niall.

With Niall, he finds it endearing and childlike and impossibly _beautiful_.

“Just don’t shag her on the couch,” Zayn pleads, picking through a mess of clothes at the end of his bed for a clean shirt before shrugging into a pair of acid wash jeans, holes ripped into the knees – because Zayn thought he was _artful_ and _trendy_ and he’ll never, ever live down those early teenage years, he swears – and stumbling into his boots.

Niall peeks his head back in, grinning with the toothbrush lodged into his hollowed cheek like he’s giving a blowjob –

Zayn thinks he’ll never get over the way Niall told him he fancied lads half as much as he was into women: with his pale knees on their kitchen floor and some university guy’s trousers around his bony ankles, deep-throating the lad midafternoon with the sun spilling over blonde hair and this kid whining out Niall’s name repeatedly with a half-arsed accent.

He doesn’t know if he was as much shocked by Niall’s technique or the way he _swallowed_ with little sputtering, fist-bumped the kid out the door and plopped down onto the couch with Zayn for a beer and _the Avengers_ afterwards.

“I was thinking about going down on her in your bed,” Niall offers with a choked laugh and glittered eyes that Zayn grimaces at.

“You’re gross,” Zayn huffs, patting around his bed until he finds his beat-up pack of Marlboros and that vintage lighter Danny got him before he left Bradford.

Niall shrugs carelessly, padding into the room with foamy bits of toothpaste staining the dusty hardwood floors.  They’re almost a tarnished charcoal now from the years of upkeep never done and the walls are a muted yellow from the lack of a new coat and the floorboards creek in all of the wrong places when you walk over them.

Still, Zayn loves this flat.  He thinks of it as _vintage_ rather than rundown and, even though it’s small, it’s the only place in this whole city he can feel between his ribs, next to his heart, swirling in that definition of _home_ everyone keeps shilling to him like he doesn’t understand the concept.

“Need to borrow a shirt for tonight, too,” Niall adds, fumbling through Zayn’s closet in a pair of pink-striped boxers that hang low because the waistband is stretched and the threads have given way for a hole near the top of his bum.

“What happened to the last one you nicked?” Zayn wonders, dragging haphazard fingers through his hair in the floor-length mirror near the window.  He knows he’ll have to fix it before dashing out the door but, for now, he lets it sit muddled and part of him misses that sharp blonde streak in the front from a few years ago.

Niall grins innocently with pink lips a bold white from the toothpaste.

“I was having a row with that one bird, Jesy, and she’s sort of into hate sex and candle wax and – “

Zayn muffles a moan into the collar of his denim jacket and shoves Niall out of the room with Zayn’s new Oxford between his fingers before his aching laughter echoes off the walls but Zayn still manages to catch the ruddy shade of his cheeks like a small piece of him is ashamed.

It’s a small piece but it’s still there.

And for a few very quiet seconds, Zayn regrets ever answering that ad to move in with Niall.

But only for a few seconds.

 

|+|

 

Discernibly, he knows his life was never meant to be a love story.

No, it doesn’t move in a velocity where your heart is unmanageable and your breathing goes shallow and _love at first sight_ has never been the kind of sentiment he could attach himself to.

Not while writing tragic love poems in secondary school and not ever when he moved to London and inking it to his skin seems a bit hypocritical but he still stains the inside of his wrist with a microphone like he has the voice to tell the world this –

Like he could show the millions that inhabit London that, indeed, love is _not_ all around like that stupid film swears by.

 

|+|

 

Zayn has been enamored with his small corner of this city for nearly two years now.

It’s a small village near the heart of Knightsbridge with tiny flats stacked on top of each other and narrow streets stuffed with people and a pub frequented by strangers who are just as in awe of the view as he is.  It has tiny shops lined in a neat row, a fresh food market instead of a Tesco and a collection of stores with more appeal than anything at Selfridge’s.  It’s almost the same faces with their half-crooked smiles and careful eyes on every person – like they were with him, like his skin was too tinted and his hair too rebel-like and his leather jacket and his cigarette behind his ear, that first day – as they pass because this village is composed of the same people who’ve lived here since they were in primary school.

His own little corner of the globe, so close to London but, somehow, so infinitely far away.

He grabs a cup of coffee from Phoebe at the coffee shop, his same stop every morning under a kaleidoscope sun that’s always hanging just behind the clouds but painting the bent up streets a hazy flaxen.  He manages to barrel through two cigarettes on the way to _A Corner Haven_ , the little bookshop that’s only meters from his flat, even if it takes him nearly fifteen minutes to walk through the crowds daily.

He’s halfway through the door, stubbing out his last cigarette with the toe of his boot, when he hears –

“You’re late,” Michael sighs, completely disinterested with the surroundings and his stupid orange apron a disastrous contrast to his neon purple-blonde hair – another poor choice from a lad who habitually dyes his hair in the name of _rebellion_ and _punk rock_ – before adding, “ _again_.”

Zayn snorts, sips at his hot coffee before fixing his glasses.  He shrugs off his jacket behind the counter, kicks Michael’s feet off a stool to flop down.

Michael flips him off but grins with those strawberry lips and bright, bright eyes that distract from the piercings and hair color and pale skin.

“Mr. Cowell is gonna fire you one of these days,” Michael declares, creasing the corner page of his tattered _To Kill a Mockingbird_ that he’s been skimming through for six months, never making it past chapter three.

Zayn bites a corner of his lip and hides a grin behind the lid of his coffee.  “You too but my tardiness doesn’t trump you blowing Nick Grimshaw behind the travel section just so your band could book a gig on his radio show,” he reminds Michael with a pointed finger and he stifles his laugh with scalding coffee while Michael feigns a gasp.

“Was sort of worth it,” Michael sighs, cheeks pushed up by his floppy smile.  “But that dickhead has a thing for choking or summat.  Fucked my vocal chords for a week.”

Zayn groans and more than half of him wonders if every bloke in this little town within a city has been reduced to sexual frustrations and adolescent wet dreams.

“Mind if I skip out early?” Michael inquires, already standing and cloaking his ripped Violent Femmes shirt with a cheap leather jacket that he passes off as ‘ _vintage_.’  “Got band practice and I’m starved for some biscuits and rum.”

Zayn grimaces at the awful combination before waving him off.

“You’re no good to me around here,” he smiles down into his coffee, peeling off the lid to soak in the minty aromatic scents.  He sips slowly at it, bathing his tongue and saturating his throat while Michael nudges him roughly with a knee and a grin.

“I keep this place in order while you’re off doing nothing with your life, Malik, don’t forget that,” Michael says, hopping over the counter while knocking over a row of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works.  He kicks them aside on the way to the door.

“You’re a disaster and this place looks like chaos,” Zayn calls out, laughing.

Michael rolls his eyes instantly, shuffling fingers stained with black nail polish through his spiky hair.  “Enjoy wanking off in the dead poets section, bro.  Try not to get your come on _the Raven_ this time.”

Zayn flips him off with a manic laugh, crinkling his eyes with his smile and Michael dashes out the door before the _‘quit fingering off to pictures of Kurt Cobain’_ shifts over his tongue and slides past his teeth.

He slides down onto the chair Michael has abandoned, kicking feet up on his empty stool while pulling his used copy of _the Half-Blood Prince_ from behind the till, the one with the carefully stuffed paperback version of _the Winter Soldier_ on the inside – as a bookmark and a distraction when Rowling gets too dark, too heavy – before swallowing a cooler sip of coffee.  There’s old acoustic music in the background – because Mr. Cowell needs something to drown out the incessant dullness of the shop – and the taste of dust in the air and the sun kicks away the shadows to warm over the table by the door housing marked down copies of the classics that no one touches.

The shop is always most quiet during the week, early Sundays, but there’s a steady flow of ever-changing customers on Saturdays, midday Mondays when work is slow.  Zayn likes it this way – the hum of old Journey and the shuffle of passing traffic and the shop a stuffy warmness that slicks his skin with sweat before five and keeps him preoccupied from his own thoughts.

He barely looks up every time the bell above the door chimes, only for a quick _hello_ with his smile and a careful set to his eyes before burying himself back in a book he never finishes – all except _the Hobbit_ because, as geeky as it sounds, he couldn’t get enough of Bilbo’s adventures and the symbolism behind it all.  He returns stacks of books to their shelves as an in-between, during the quieter hours and refills his cup with stale coffee Mr. Cowell tries to pass off as premium blend.

It’s a little after three and he’s only halfway through the book – and three pages away from finishing Captain America’s next adventure – when a throat clears and Zayn startles at the noise.  He fixes his glasses, takes a long sip of coffee before setting his eyes over the boy on the other side of the counter and he is –

He’s a _marvel_ is what he is.  It tastes like the wrong word and sits like razors over his tongue but Zayn can’t help himself for a moment.  He’s a crooked smile over foreign pink lips and soft hair tugged into a half-quiff and apple cider brown eyes and soft cheeks contrasting with a jawline made hard by scattered bits of scruff.  He’s got hands meant to mold and muscles trapped beneath a thin Henley and a shyness about the crinkles around his eyes that are hazardous, even to Zayn.

“Hey,” the boy says with the polite lilt of an almost local accent and long fingers shift over the counter like he’s anxious.  “I was wondering – “

Zayn bites into his lip, misses almost everything that accompanies that lopsided grin and those fascinating eyes because John Mayer’s in the background crooning about _‘your body is a wonderland, I’ll use my hands’_ and he’s lost on the way this boy looks strong but careens like a traffic accident when he smiles.

“You what?” Zayn asks, lost between silly verses and the tan skin hidden beneath too many clothes.

The boy smiles like a heartbreak and strokes a slow tongue over his lips that’s distracting, if anything, before he says, “I was wondering if you – if the shop carried a copy of _the Time Traveler’s Wife_?”

Zayn quirks an eyebrow, leaning his elbows on the counter while the boy cups the nape of his neck, looking abashed with the sun hinting off the rose frosted over those soft, soft cheeks.

“Me girlfriend,” the boy starts, swallowing, and Zayn watches that honey spot against the skin of his neck, a birthmark, shift before he sighs and bites nervously at a twisted lip, “my _ex-girlfriend_ , I should say, made me watch the film.  Fell asleep halfway through but my sister swears the book is a good read.”

Zayn smiles, a little teasingly and a lot sheepishly before closing his own book.

“S’not really,” Zayn mumbles, reaching over piles of books on the counter, thumbing over spines until he finds what he wants.  He shoves it at the boy, waits a breath or two while he glances over the summary on the back and that grin he gets in return is worth the seven seconds where his heart stops in anticipation.

“ _The Kite Runner_?” the boy asks, thumbing through a few pages with large eyes that scan the words.

Zayn nods slowly, dragging chaotic fingers through his thick hair and rocking back on his heels.  He scratches dull nails over his stubble and bites roughly at his bottom lip before explaining, “It’s massively addictive.  At least, I think it might be more interesting than a silly love story.”

“Love stories aren’t silly.”

Zayn scoffs lowly, almost regrets the sound when the boy’s lips tip slightly downward but he’s still gripping the book, blinking at Zayn like he’s –

Like he’s something to be awed or something to treasure or something _great_.

And it surges through his blood, drags adrenaline through his veins, stills his breath and it all feels like something out of a Julia Roberts’ film he’s probably seen a dozen times but never truly enjoyed.

“Liam,” the boy says with a twitching smile and his spare hand reaching across the counter.

Zayn reacts instinctively rather than reflexively, lost in that strong grip and the way those rough knuckles feel under the pads of his fingers.  He swears he can see the start of ink on the inside of Liam’s wrist and the shift of sinewy muscles in his bicep when he adds pressure and those large brown eyes are the color of a newborn dusk when the sun is still a harsh tangerine.

“I’m Zayn,” he says under his breath, still learning the softness of Liam’s palm and the way his fingers are just shy of calloused and they almost catch with Zayn’s when Liam drags his hand slowly back.  Zayn shifts an eyebrow upward, letting the dopamine circulate without resistance before adding, “Haven’t seen you around here, have I?”

Liam grins, goofily and with mild hesitance before shaking his head.  He pushes those fingers through his hair and Zayn watches the way it’s so pliant under his touch.

“Don’t get into the village much,” he admits, squeezing the spine of the book until the tips of his fingers go white.  “I’m quite busy with – “

“Creating love stories?” Zayn offers, clipping the corner of his bottom lip with sharp teeth.

Those cheeks flush and those eyes cast downward until Zayn can pick out the gold in his lashes while Liam shuffles his feet on the beat-up carpet of the store.

“Actually,” Liam starts, lifting his head and tilting it a little like _if you only knew_ , “I’m quite horrible at that part.  You can ask a few of my ex-girlfriends.”

Zayn smiles and nods but something sweet and unexpected curls around his spine when Liam adds, softly, _‘and there’s that one ex-boyfriend too but I don’t know if he counts’_ and Zayn thinks, _yes, he counts_ and _who is he_ and _he probably didn’t deserve you anyway_.

“But I’m a right idiot for a happy ending,” Liam stammers, still stroking the back of his neck, still incredibly nervous even if those muscles settle neatly under his shirt and his broad shoulders remind Zayn of a soldier, of a prince charming – if he believed in things like that.

“Never had one,” Zayn huffs, looking away before those brown convince him to close the shop and see how beautiful those white teeth would look across his shoulder when Liam comes inside of him between the stacks of Nicholas Sparks and the science fiction aisle no one bothers to meander down.

“Not yet,” Liam says with a river of stars in his eyes and a fumbled grin and something a little teasing behind his voice that catches Zayn unexpectedly.

It sounds cheesy and out of a poorly written film and disturbingly _awful_ but Zayn can’t help the way that embarrassed smile over loose lips and those round cheeks and the crinkles just at the corners of his eyes toss all of the rules out the window, just for a minute –

But briefly, he thinks this boy is incredible and the rules don’t matter and quite possibly, just maybe, he could be more than a cock in Zayn’s throat and a set of exploratory fingers over his wiry frame and a warm comfort between his sheets.

He lets those thoughts seep between the aisles and chews slowly at his bottom lip when Liam pulls out a few quid with a shaky hand and mishandled grin.

“Right, don’t want to keep you,” Liam beams, all of his features tangled and those eyes bunch up with his silly grin before Zayn raises his brow, rings up the book and wraps it in a paper bag.

He thinks his heart slows – a half a beat, a slow thrum – when Liam reaches for the book, fingers brushing and eyes skimming over the blush stinging at this boy’s cheeks like he’s a little uncertain and unwilling to pull away.

“Enjoy the book, Liam,” Zayn says, stringing a confidence in his voice that unsettles all of Liam’s armor and exposes the nerves he’s hiding poorly.

“Cheers,” Liam stammers, crinkling the paper bag and leaning back on his heels.

Zayn grins, tries to hide it in his shoulder because, curiously, he wonders how many people this boy with the hard surface and rough knuckles and scraps of stubble has fooled.  He wonders if the world can even see the quiet strings of gold under the layers of brown in his eyes or the way he constantly twists a bottom lip between his teeth or how he’s a walking definition of a _man_ with those wide shoulders and pulsing muscles that he hides but he’s still such a _boy_ with the flickering smile in his tone and those twitching fingers constantly stroking the nape of his neck.

He wonders if anyone even gets – within the first few seconds of meeting him, like Zayn has – that he’s a complete enigma –

And Zayn thinks, quite possibly, it’s what stirs little fireworks in his stomach and strengthens the throb of his heart and leads him to want to see this boy’s face under a tart sun, between his sheets, after he stripes his belly with come because, just maybe, he’s even more fascinating when he’s vulnerable.

Instead, he watches Liam string fingers through the tuft of hair at the top of his head – wrecking the quiff but the honeycomb strands still look interesting out of place – while Mick Jagger serenades them in the background and, no, _wild horses_ couldn’t drag Zayn away.  Liam shifts the book under his arm and teeters from foot to foot before laughing, a hiccupping noise that’s brighter than the sun.

Liam drags knuckles over his twitching nose and eyes the door for a long second before nodding.

“Thanks again, Zayn,” he mumbles with his lip still caught in his teeth and a tilted head and Zayn doesn’t think his name has ever sounded quite so intriguing until it slipped off of that loose pink tongue.

It’s a sign he avoids and he looks away when Liam shuffles towards the door but he can’t seem to catch himself before he says, “It’s a bit cold outside, mate.”

He shrinks and winces and corners a breath in his lungs for the oxygen he can’t grasp until Liam glances over his shoulder with that lazy smile.

“S’okay,” he replies, tugging on a fuzzy beanie and a pair of glassy Aviators like a disguise, his secret identity.  “I’m sort of used to training in this weather.”

Zayn wants to ask what he means – and how he takes his tea and what his favorite film is and if he’s ever shagged on a first date – but he curls the worlds with his tongue and rubs gently at his collarbone as a distraction to the way a dimple peeks into Liam’s cheek, pink lips spread wide.

“See you around Zayn?” Liam asks but it’s more of a statement, more of a promise, more of an unintended serenade with his soft, soothing voice that sinks into Zayn’s nervous system like sentences that start with _I hope_ attached.

 _Probably not_ , Zayn thinks with unruly fingers pulling through his hair and it’s true.  He’s practical and thoughtful and this is probably just an interlude in an otherwise complicated life that Zayn’s never quite adjusted to.

Still, he smiles at Liam like _maybe_ and holds onto the _I hope_ caught in the back of his throat until Liam gives him a small wave and escapes out the door, the almost mid-January wind kicking the door back with a bang.

It takes him a half-hour and a cigarette behind the shop before he cools his lungs to the idea of seeing that dopey smile and those crinkly eyes and those strong hands again and he braves the cold that bites at his skin until he shivers out the way his name sounded across Liam’s tongue.

 

|+|

 

When he was a child, he never really learned how to swim and he thinks, belatedly, maybe that’s why he spends the rest of his shift _drowning_ in the idea of learning the feel of Liam’s knuckles over his spine and how that stubble under his jaw feels over Zayn’s willing lips in the dark.

 

|+|

 

That night, after a coffee and a few chapters of a condensed version of _War and Peace_ , Zayn shoves into his flat with a naked Niall – well _almost_ but his briefs ride high on his thighs and sit low on his abdomen – spread on their couch with a box of greasy pizza, playing video games and sipping loudly on a bottle of Guinness.  He’s got a shiny smile with a backwards snapback pushing down his hair and his glow in the dark eyes beam when Zayn stumbles into the room.

“Saved you a slice or two, mate,” Niall crows, shoving over and Zayn goes soft, pliant into the cushions until Niall slings an arm around his shoulder and stains his cheekbone with oily lips.

“Vegetarian?” Zayn asks, fighting off the exhaustion and the discomfort sinking into his bones from a day of nothingness.

“Spicy chicken,” Niall gleams and Zayn chokes out a laugh, fumbles with a smile before stealing a slice.

“Some days,” Zayn hums, Niall’s fingers automatically tangling in his hair while he shrugs out of his jacket, kicks his boots up onto the end table decorated in old newspapers next to Niall’s feet, “I love you, Nialler.”

“Every day,” Niall corrects, smirking into the hollow beneath Zayn’s jaw.

Zayn snorts and nods and twists a little into Niall, soaking in his warmth and mapping out all of the freckles over his pale skin like constellations.

Niall sighs out something grumpy, irritated and Zayn pinches his thigh until he coos out a pleased noise.

“Derby lost the match,” Niall mumbles against Zayn’s neck, killing zombies one-handed while still twirling his fingers through Zayn’s hair, pressing gently to his scalp.  “Stupid Arsenal.  They’re right bastards and obvious cheaters.  The ref didn’t know the right calls to make.  That save by Keogh was brilliant and Martin nearly had that last goal.”

Zayn snorts into Niall’s snapback, tickles a few fingers to the inside of Niall’s thigh, over the downy hair until Niall yelps and bites his skin in retaliation.

“Hopefully they murder Man U next week,” Niall adds and Zayn rolls his eyes instantly.

“We don’t discuss Manchester United in this flat Niall, you know that – “

“Oi, fuck off,” Niall giggles, sneaking bites of Zayn’s slice while feeding Zayn sips of tacky bitter.  “Just because your baba isn’t a – “

Zayn clears his throat loudly and Niall’s words catch on his lips, sputtered and dying between the cracks in the floor.  Zayn looks away, immediately, biting into his lip until Niall’s fingers scratch at his scalp in that soothing manner he always does when Zayn’s thinking too much, when he’s drowning in his own thick haze –

And he’s so grateful when Niall knocks their ankles and shoves more pizza into Zayn’s mouth and it’s a diversion, really, but it’s _Niall_ and Zayn has been nothing but an advocate for this idiot since that first week.

“How was the shop?” Niall wonders, halfway through another slice and two-thirds through his beer, grinning when Zayn turns toward him again.

Zayn shrugs but his lungs fill with something sweet and unsettling and he remembers –

A stain of maple over a long neck and taut muscles and rough knuckles and cotton candy lips bitten by white teeth and –

There’s a little helpless smile pushing the corners of his mouth upward and Niall cocks an eyebrow like _what is happening_ that Zayn wants to run from.  He tucks his chin instead, scratches playfully at Niall’s knee and tries to shake the fresh feeling shoving the last of his smoke from his chest.

“You seem quite chuffed, bro,” Niall teases, thumbing at Zayn’s tattoos until their slick with pizza grease, shiny and almost new again.

“M’not,” Zayn mumbles but there’s something distinct in his voice that gives him away –

Stupid boy and haphazardly beautiful eyes and throbbing voice and that twitch in his cock when he thinks about that pink tongue.

“Fuck off, yes, you are,” Niall laughs loudly, tightening his arm around Zayn’s shoulders and dragging him in closer.

Zayn brushes his lips over Niall’s warm collarbone and presses the heat of his cheek to a pale chest and he wants to forget the world, forget those minutes of his life.  He wants those images behind his eyelids – strong jawline, strong hands, strong _everything_ – to disappear but they won’t.

No, they haven’t for hours and he’s experimenting with stupid verses of classic poems to describe the way Liam smiles in his head.

“Must be some gorgeous bird,” Niall snickers with a wrinkled nose, crooked grin that Zayn knows too well.  Fingers stroke leisurely over the nape of his neck and he draws back only when Niall says, “Or some rather fit lad, judging by the size of your boner, mate.”

He squeaks out an undefinable noise and shoves playfully at Niall and tugs out a pillow to cover his lap, the burn of his cheeks brighter in the dark of the living room.  He winces at Niall’s poor rendition of an old Usher tune and wants to scurry to his room but Niall knocks their hips and curls around Zayn and he thinks this feels more like home than his bed ever will.

And he doesn’t admit that it is indeed a boy with gold undertones in his hair and fingers that soothe and a smile that stuns and a thickness to his voice that’s unforgettable, even with the howl of the wind in the background that has him tangled around his own organs.

He merely takes calm breaths until Niall flicks on _the Incredible Hulk_ and they wade in their silence with soft smiles and roaming hands and Zayn lets daft thoughts of a passing boy drown in the cushions of the couch.

 

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The sky is a marble black with the city lights in the background a pinwheel – or a collision – of colors.  The wind is a stiff, crisp sting from the cracked window of his bedroom and his bed is shoved against the wall nearest, bare feet stuffed under the thick afghan while he perches on the small ledge of a windowsill.  He’s got the sleeves of his jumper tugged down over his knuckles and the smoke from his cigarette spilling like the fumes from a factory into the sky.  There’s a beanie shoved over his head, the only light in the room from his laptop playing a constant loop of _Inception_ with that blue glow tinting his skin a pale gold.

Zayn sips casually at a still warm cup of tea – not that herbal crap Harry loves but a nice blend of orange spices and cinnamon, an almond color that reminds him of another city he once knew – and watches the moon peek from its hideaway behind purple clouds.  He trades swallows of sharp tea with cigarette smoke and the deep breaths of almost midnight air won’t settle this dust in his lungs.

“Hey,” Niall says, low and gravelly like he’s already huffed through his own pack of Mayfair’s with a smile stitched over pinkish lips.  He’s peeking disheveled blonde hair in the door, fingers tapping out a slow melody over the wood before he adds, “Going for the moody look tonight?”

Zayn greets him with a middle finger but doesn’t try to hide his laugh, letting the smoke chase down that guilt in his chest.

“Fuck off Ni,” he coughs out, trying to disguise the noise with another giggle that doesn’t beat as strong.

Niall shrugs, deepening his smirk.  “S’that the wrong term?  I’m not quite as sophisticated with the art terms like you, mate.”

Zayn bites at his lip and shakes his head, does his best to ignore the way Niall tries out _‘post-modernist’_ and _‘pre-industrialism’_ and watches the dizzying cloaks of blue smoke dancing into the sky.  He flicks his eyes down to the old photo sitting next to him – with the edges worn, crinkled and the colors have bled out into a rusted orange, an autumn yellow – and he blinks at the little girls for too long, the scenery he remembers and wide eyes he hasn’t looked into for a lifetime.

“Broody!” Niall exclaims and it’s accompanied by a loud laugh that stirs deep in Zayn’s chest.

He looks up when Niall hip checks the door open and he’s only wearing a Beatles t-shirt that’s two sizes too small and a pair of loose boxers but it’s all just a diversion to the homemade cupcake – with a lump of sugary pink frosting on top – with a single candle flickering a warm flame in his hand.

The glow steals across all of Zayn’s favorite features on Niall’s face – his eyes like crystals and his smile wider than the Thames and his cheeks that sweet pink like spring flowers – and he nudges onto the bed until their shoulders are pressed together.  He shoves the cupcake at Zayn while nicking the last of his cigarette.

“Happy birthday Zaynie,” Niall smirks, pressing a smile into the side of Zayn’s neck before taking a long drag of smoke that he puffs out in lazy rings of grey.

Zayn cocks an eyebrow upward and hides his free fingers in Niall’s messy hair before shoving a wet kiss to his temple.

“You idiot,” he says like a _thank you_ and Niall sighs out a pleased noise that Zayn latches onto.  “I was trying to forget.”

“I know,” Niall teases back, stroking his cold toes over the inside of Zayn’s foot, “which is why you should’ve disabled that meaningless Facebook account that you never use – “

“And you use to chat up girls under the guise of one _Z. Malik_ ,” Zayn argues with a smile and fingers stroking behind Niall’s ear.

Niall shrugs noncommittally and Zayn doesn’t have the bravado to reprimand him.  Instead, he licks a long stripe of icing from the cupcake and lets Niall nuzzle between his neck and shoulder for a long moment of trading cigarette smoke with spare flicks of soluble carbohydrates.  They blow out the candle together and cuddle closer when the draft sweeps into the bedroom, smiling at nothing.

Zayn lights another cigarette while Niall steals the antique photo and a sigh crosses his lips while Niall offers him a look that’s almost, almost empathetic –

Except, he doesn’t think Niall knows half of this feeling that aches under his bones and stays between his veins and shifts coldly through his blood.

“One day,” Niall starts, like he always does when he’s trying to understand, “you’ll go back and – “

Zayn levels him with a look, narrowed eyes and a drag to his lips around the filter.

“They wouldn’t want – “

“They _would_ ,” Niall insists, a smudge of confidence littered in his voice.  An arm curls around Zayn’s shoulders and lips press to the shell of his ear and the enthusiastic breath that follows feels like warm waters in the summer.

“You’re not a failure, Zee,” Niall swears with a forehead to Zayn’s temple, “You’re important to someone.”

Zayn laughs until that ironic feeling shifts lower, under his esophagus, and shoves Niall off because he doesn’t need _placating_.

He doesn’t need a _hero_ in his storyline.

“You don’t count,” he teases, tickling fingers just under Niall ribs until the cupcake nearly stains his sheets and they swipe sticky fingers from the icing across each other’s cheeks until that warm, giddy feeling overwhelms him and chases his thoughts into a corner.

“You right fucker,” Niall huffs out breathily.  He tangles sticky fingers under Zayn’s beanie and his spare hand wraps around Zayn’s wrist to form a connection before he adds, “But you love me all the same.”

Zayn can’t argue.  He fumbles a smile, instead, and spreads fingers over Niall’s spine until his breathing mellows into something euphoric.

Niall’s laugh is affectionate and comforting as he licks icing from the top of the cupcake, smearing it on his nose, and Zayn doesn’t think about his birthday last year –

A small house back in Bradford crowded with family he’s known all of his life and the string of questions from everyone and the _‘how is London,’_ _‘when can we see your flat,’_ _‘you must have such a posh collection of clothes from the photo shoots,’_ _‘are you dating somebody famous’_ that played on repeat every time someone lunged in for a hug.

No, he doesn’t think of the way his mum hugged herself in the corner with that cold expression or the way his baba didn’t say much or that inescapable feeling that he was a stranger in his own life.

“One day,” Niall repeats into the hollow of his collarbone and Zayn fists fingers into Niall’s hair to stop the shaking and he swears the heaviness in his chest just won’t fade.

Not for Niall’s laugh or the sugary cupcake or the photograph tucked under his pillow now.

 

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He spends the rest of the night hiding under a thick pile of blankets with the window still cracked, humming old Billy Joel tunes his grandfather taught him and pretending the world will stop spinning when he wants it to.

But it doesn’t and, after a while, he thinks it’s okay with that dizzy feeling.

He thinks he can find his gravity without shattering like he did the last time.

 

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He’s only half-awake in the aftermath of a tornado – or _Niall_ – they call a kitchen with a strong cup of coffee and headphones in his ear for a morning mix of Miguel and Example.  He’s only halfway through his cup and still shaking off the feeling of being hungover – even if he didn’t have a drink the night before and he’s dehydrated despite downing a whole bottle of water before brewing his cup – when Niall stumbles in with bed hair, an extremely pink cheek from pressing too hard into his pillow, and morning wood.

Zayn chokes on his coffee while Niall tries to tame his flaxen mane and snacks on cold leftover pizza.

“What?” Niall garbles, stealing a cup of coffee and adding milk – Zayn swears by black coffee and glazed donuts and Weetabix over bran flakes and they’re complete opposites in this tiny flat.

Zayn pinches the bridge of his nose and gestures towards the tented material of Niall’s boxers, glaring at his pale legs rather than the dip of his waistband when he goes to scratch himself particularly low on his abdomen.

“Oi, fuck off Malik,” Niall barks out with a laugh and a swayed sigh, “’s not as if you haven’t had one of these down your throat or a pair of bullocks between your lips.”

Zayn scoffs and tosses a three-day old scone at him but he easily sidesteps it and knocks their ankles together when he perches on the counter next to Zayn.  They smile at each other and exchange fist bumps as a _good morning_ and wade in their silence like the cool, sill waves of an ocean on the California coast.

He pops out an earbud, fists fingers into that car wreck of blonde hair on Niall’s head and tugs gentle enough that Niall mewls and growls and softens a smile to Zayn’s bare shoulder.

“You never told me about the bloke from yesterday,” Niall tells him in that dragging, sleep-ridden voice he holds onto for hours even after being awake.

Zayn hides a smile in the crown of Niall’s head and waits until Niall pinches his thigh before he replies, “Who?”

Niall kicks his foot hard and almost knocks his coffee out of his other hand.  “The one from yesterday, you tosser.  The one that had you chuffed and sporting a major fuck tool – “

Zayn groans and ignores Niall’s exaggerated noises like a bad porno to swallow down some more coffee, to breathe in that heady musk from Niall’s skin and the aftermaths of Irish Spring soap.

“S’nobody,” Zayn sighs, scratching lightly at Niall’s scalp until he spots a foot shaking, pleased.  “Just some lad.”

“Just some lad,” Niall repeats, low and it’s as if he’s spinning the words in his head to figure it all out.

Zayn hopes he doesn’t.

He was just some kid with nice eyes, strong hands, a brilliant jawline –

An excuse or a commotion or a _meanwhile_ –

He hopes that’s all he was.

“Probably won’t see him again, anyway,” Zayn adds just to slow the way Niall keeps drawing invisible shapes over his thigh, to soften that little wrinkle between his eyebrows like he’s thinking too hard.

He stares down into his coffee when Niall whispers _‘that’s horrible’_ and his muscles relax to the rhythm of Drake in one ear while they float through their next few breaths – weightless, unintentional, careful not to disturb the flow.

“Could hook you up with a few of the birds I’ve shagged,” Niall offers, quiet and there’s a smile behind each of his words.  “You need to get off in something other than your palm mate.”

Zayn shoves teasingly at his shoulder, presses a soft laugh behind Niall’s ear and lulls in the noise it produces from Niall.

“M’fine,” Zayn insists, arm tightening around Niall.

“You’re _celibate_ ,” Niall corrects, a little more serious but still with a crooked grin, “I do believe that’s the clinical time.”

“Idiot,” Zayn smirks and their restless fingers find fresh skin to touch, to thumb across until the minutes drift and Zayn presses a sloppy kiss to Niall’s cheek before hopping off the counter for his shift.

 

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Probably won’t see him again.

It’s an afterthought – at least, it’s meant to be.

But it lingers a little deep, like the stretch of bone between muscle, and it echoes in his head for hours between _Goblet of Fire_ and the works of Tennyson and he doesn’t even realize his coffee has gone cold behind the counter until he stops _staring_ at the door to the bookshop.

Until he stops thinking that silly boy with the large eyes like smooth chocolate and the loose jaw and the fumbled laugh.

He reminds himself that Liam was nothing more than an apparition.  Just a passing breeze during a late autumn walk –

And by the time the shop closes and he’s studied every line of Plato until he thinks about inking _‘at the touch of love everyone becomes a poet’_ vertically up the inside of his forearm, right next to the thick microphone, he realizes he’s been holding his breath for something he doesn’t really believe in: _love at first sight_.

 

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It’s almost two weeks later, when he’s _almost_ forgotten _‘love stories aren’t silly’_ and halfway through a hot espresso and a tattered copy of _Don Quixote_ from tenth year when the chime above the door rings and –

 _Oh_.

Zayn pretends not to stare at that loose smile or that jaw stained with a little more stubble than he remembers.  A soft-looking zip hoodie is wrapped around broad shoulders and Zayn can see the bare chest beneath, the springs of hair on his chest.  He stretches his neck long with shy, mahogany eyes and a backwards snapback hiding his hair and sweats hanging low on his hips.  Liam’s long fingers are cupping the nape of his neck – a deliberate tactic that distracts Zayn from the dimples, the sloped nose, the caramel splotch of a birthmark – and he stumbles up to the counter with heavy pants like he jogged all the way here –

Like he _ran_ here, to find Zayn, to offer this nervous smile like an apology, like an _‘I’ve been thinking about you every single day’_ but all of that is daft.

It’s some tragic line of bullshit from those cheesy romance novels Zayn refuses to read, no matter how many of them Harry recommends.

It’s when Liam’s close enough to count all of his eyelashes and spot the freckles across his nose that Zayn notices the jagged line in the center of chapped lips, the subtle bruising high on one cheek, the scars across his knuckles when he splays his fingers over the counter.

He quirks an eyebrow and, even with the bruising, Liam’s cheeks flush and his teeth sink into that wounded lip instinctually rather than thoughtfully.

Zayn waits a breath, watches the way Liam absorbs the glow of the sun and how his smile deepens when Zayn’s mouth twists into something similar and he quickly forgets that Lancelot was a horrible friend for betraying Arthur the way he did because, maybe, knights in shining armor wear different disguises in the daylight –

“Hey you,” Liam says softly to divert Zayn’s attention, to hold his eyes a little longer with that dopey smile that Zayn swears he hasn’t dreamt about or sort of hates.

Zayn snorts, forces shaky fingers through loose hair and swallows a healthy amount of coffee before replying, “Do we know each other?”

It’s meant as a joke but Liam, almost instantly, looks wounded and Zayn doesn’t know why he wants to fist fingers into that loose hoodie and part Liam’s lips with a slow tongue as an apology, as an _‘you could fuck me into remembering’_ because –

He blinks hard at Liam and succumbs to his thoughts, tugging at his hair to stop his fingers from reaching out and Liam sputters a small laugh like he’s catching on.

“Sorry about that,” Liam mumbles and it’s only then Zayn realizes his spare hand is holding out a coffee, the light aroma stiff with something delicately warm.  “I remember, well, last time you were drinking a coffee from this one café I think I’ve passed a few times and I hope I got it right because, if not, I will – “

Zayn clears his throat to stop him, lips unintentionally pulling upward when he takes the coffee and he hopes that it’s all an illusion – this boy, his smile, his blunt fingernails that scratch over the bird inked to the back of Zayn’s hand when he pries the cup from Liam’s hand.

“Thanks,” he mumbles and the first sip is – he chokes on a whimper and the taste is heavenly and the feeling in his stomach, like this dopey boy will ruin him, is unsettling.

It’s _irritating_ is what it is.  He is, by far, no Bella Swan or some tragically love-ridden teenage boy in heat.

He will not be won over by a smile and a cup of coffee and eyes that promise to give him more.

“I was a bit nervous about coming back before I finished the book,” Liam explains, even if Zayn doesn’t ask.  Even if Zayn’s too caught in the way the sun reflects shards of hazardous gold in Liam’s eyes.

There’s a nervous giggle slipping past those pink lips and Zayn watches Liam’s thumb press into the tendons of his neck until something loosens in his spine, disquiets most of those nerves.  It’s terrifyingly beautiful to watch – the loose lips, the subtle dimples, the tight crinkles waiting to form around his eyes – but Zayn drifts on it, for a second and a heavy breath.

Zayn clears his throat again, hides an amused expression behind his cup before he asks, “Did you finish?”

“I finished the first chapter,” Liam admits, laughs off the embarrassment even though it shows in the color of his cheeks and the twitch of his fingers.  His teeth catch his bottom lip while he ducks his head.

Something curves into Zayn’s vertebrae until he’s forced to sniff at his coffee to disguise his grin.  His fingers squeeze around the cup, looking up through his lashes to find Liam staring at him like –

He feels fragile and like an art piece in a gallery and a cosmic explosion visible to the naked eye and so many more things that feel completely complex but unnecessarily clichéd.

Their staring at each other – and no, Zayn isn’t looking at him like he _longs_ for those hands or those lips but, well – is interrupted by the chime of the bell above the door and Zayn mutes his sigh of relief in his coffee when two kids dash inside, their mums laughing together outside the shop while the wind kicks their hair into a tangled tapestry.  He sets his cup on the counter, leans over it when Liam tenses up for a second and Zayn flicks an eyebrow up at the way Liam chews on his bottom lip.

Liam shrugs, buries his hands in the pockets of his sweats and rocks on his heels until the boys scurry up with armfuls of comic books and dusty hardback Harry Potter novels.  They stare curiously at Zayn for a moment and then blink hard at Liam until their jaws go slack and then –

“It’s _him_ ,” one exclaims, hisses, dropping his stack onto the counter and scurrying up to Liam.

“Bloody hell – “

“Language,” Liam warns with a warm smile and a shaking head.

He tousles the boy’s unruly blonde curls and yanks out a Sharpie from his pocket to scribble something over the exposed pale skin of the other boy’s arm, sleeve shoved up like his body is a canvas for Liam to decorate.

“Dude, you’re incredible,” the blonde yelps.

Liam laughs – this brilliant sound that’s like the dawn and clever like the sun setting in Paris and thick like early thunderstorms – and scripts something to the _Iron Man_ comic shoved at him by the other boy.

“Not really, mate,” Liam insists with those crinkled eyes.  “Just lucky, I guess.”

“But we saw you in London over the summer and when you won the – “

Liam drags thick fingers through the boy’s hair, thumbs along his forehead to shock him into silence and his half-attempt at winking is poorly executed but Zayn finds it amusing.  He watches Liam bow and lean in, whisper something between them and they grin wide, eyes the size of supernovas while Liam pays for their books and they shuffle out like two dumb fans who just met Superman.

Zayn waits until Liam turns back to him with that nervous twist to his lips and fumbled looks before he chokes out a laugh.

“What was that about?” Zayn inquires, folding his arms with a hip still propped against the counter.

“Nothing,” Liam mumbles but he’s shit at lying, Zayn can tell, even if he tries so hard.

“Bullshit,” Zayn teases with a giggle but he doesn’t press for more when Liam’s cheeks go pinker, his skin flushed and his hands trembling when one goes to fold around the nape of his neck again.

“Hey,” Liam says like a question but it’s caught tight in his throat, strangled.  His eyes flicker as if he’s building the courage while he leans in, “I was wondering – “

His words are a stuttered, clumsy mess that stumble into the hollowed out, empty aisles when Liam inclines too far – like he wants to whisper just for Zayn to hear – forward and knocks over Zayn’s coffee.  It splashes and spills and soaks Liam’s joggers in the collision.  He shuffles back, nearly trips on the carpeting and pats helplessly at the soiled area just near his crotch –

And Zayn doesn’t think about how dark the fabric goes, how he can almost, _almost_ see the outline of Liam’s cock and how he wonders if his lips could tease it awake later on between the dusty aisles with the sun spiraling downward in the background.

“Shit,” Liam gasps, looking up with his lip pinned between his teeth and his cheeks flushed and wide eyes.  He looks abashed, little wrinkles in his forehead giving him away.

“Hey,” Zayn starts, pulling an old flannel from behind the counter to offer him.

Liam gasps, groans lowly and shakes his head.  “M’sorry, mate.  Fuck, I’m so sorry.  I’m such an idiot.”

Zayn snorts, aborts a full-on laugh when Liam whines and slides around the counter.  He drops a hand on Liam’s wide shoulder, pushing against the soft, thick material until he can trace smooth muscles beneath.

“S’okay,” Zayn swears, fighting against his crooked grin that exposes his teeth and the pink tongue tucked behind them, while Liam deflates a little.  “You okay?”

Liam’s nose twitches, eyes softening before he replies, “Gutted, actually.  S’not how I wanted to do this – “

“This?” Zayn interrupts with a raised brow, fingers learning the contours of Liam’s biceps.

Liam shakes his head, cheeks burning as he shuffles out a smile.  “Nothing.”

There’s something madly intriguing about that crooked smile and the Beatles are singing _in my life I’ve loved you more_ in the background and it’s daft, cheesy like bad dialogue in romantic comedies.  But the stutter in his chest and the something light in his blood that stills his circulation system keeps him in place.  It rocks and ebbs until he remembers the flush of his cheeks highlights the bruise high on his skin and he’s bitten a fresh wound into his lip and Zayn feels paralyzed when those rough knuckles skim over the back of his hand to hide the stain on Liam’s joggers.

“You’re manic,” Zayn says like a tease but it’s cuddled by fascination that he can’t quite resist.

Liam smirks, laughs even while shuffling closer.  “I’ve been called worse.”

Zayn snorts, nods.  “Sure you have,” he snickers, couples it with a _‘sure you have Bruce Wayne’_ that Liam arches an eyebrow at and he feels flushed, shameful with his hidden smile in the sleeve of his shirt.

“He’s my favorite,” Liam admits, low and raspy and just on that edge of dark that Zayn likes against the shell of his ear with a chest pressed to his spine and a pair of fingers twisting inside of his hole and –

“My flat is just around the corner,” he squeaks out and he doesn’t know why.

He’s bloody fucking _mad_ is what he is.

Liam’s brow shifts slowly upward and the careful grin he responds with spikes like nails down Zayn’s chest.

“You can wash up,” Zayn adds because he knows how it sounds – _‘my flat is just around the corner and I’d love for you to stand in the hallway while I get on my knees for you and did you know I am absolutely wonderful with my gag reflex?’_ – and he breathes unevenly until Liam nods.

He shrugs like it’s meaningless, like all strangers offer up their basin and a change of clothes and maybe a cup of tea but his fingers – on blind momentum – curl loosely around Liam’s wrist and tug his hand away from his soiled sweats.  His thumb presses over sharp ink on the inside of Liam’s forearm and his spare hand tugs through his hair to edge off the nerves.

“Just let me close up the shop and,” Zayn pauses, watches Liam chew at his lip and suck away the blood with a pink tongue and maybe that cup of tea could come with a quick blowjob and a few biscuits?

He buries the scarlet threatening his cheeks in the collar of his leather jacket but he can’t help but notice the way his fingers tighten around Liam’s wrist and guides him through stacks of books the entire time.

 

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And he can’t help but notice, when they’re on the crowded streets and amongst the sun and noise, Liam stays close enough that their shoulders brush and their fingers knock every few steps.

He almost misses the smile Liam offers him, the way the sun breaks cinnamon hues into those large eyes and the shy twist of his lips when bitten by teeth.  The Arctic Monkeys in the background, with Alex Turner and his _‘I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what it is I need,’_ plays like a diversion to the way Liam shifts a little closer on the busy sidewalks and his knuckles keep brushing over the ink on the back of Zayn’s hand and he’s humming _reckless serenade_ like a taunt rather than a mantra for the moment.

And he can’t help but notice there’s still something unsure, coiled tight into the layers of Liam’s eyes when they reach Zayn’s flat with the silly bright red door and gold accents and embarrassingly regrettable Christmas decorations still lining the railing.

 

|+|

Zayn’s learned, years ago, expectation is the infinite space between reality and lucidity and his _expectation_ is to shove through the front door to an empty flat that’s quiet and serene and only half the wreckage of a tornado.

Instead, the kitchen is a fog of light smoke and there’s a symphony of classic Billy Joel on vinyl and burnt pancakes on a chipped plate and a half-naked Niall echoing _‘there’s an old man sitting next to me making love to his tonic and gin’_ through the barren hallway like he’s standing in the middle of a crowded pub full of mates.  His hair is a scattered mess of peroxide blonde and he’s wearing a pair of Ray Bans and one of Zayn’s old Oxfords – all of the buttons undone and a pale chest on display – with boxer shorts and tube socks.  He’s something out of _Risky Business_ and a lot like a hurricane with his booming voice and his ridiculously wide smile and Zayn hides his shameful cheeks, stupid grin in his jacket while they stand in the doorway.

There’s a rush of something hot, something that pinks his skin when fingers brush over his hip and Liam harmonizes the _‘sing us a song, you’re the piano man’_ behind him.  It aches up his muscles and, for a moment, they sway together in an unintentional move before Zayn turns away from those gentle fingers and shoves his jacket onto their makeshift coat rack.

“Holy fuck,” Niall chokes out, sunglasses slipped down his nose and those blue eyes are newborn stars in a purple sky when he stares at Liam.  “No fucking way.”

Zayn crinkles his brow, half-turns to Liam who’s rubbing at the back of his head and dropping his chin like he’s embarrassed and the tip of a tongue brushes away shame stitched to plush lips.

Niall downs orange juice from a carton, kicks the fridge closed while wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist and he scrambles closer until Zayn’s nearly wedged between them.

“This is fucking mad,” Niall gasps, twisting fingers painfully around Zayn’s wrist until he can’t shift away.  “Are you manic, bro?  You’ve brought – “

Zayn lifts a curious eyebrow while Liam sputters a noise barely heard beneath the swelling piano and the bacon is burning and the eggs are undercooked while the toast looks a shade too pale but all of those distractions can’t stir Zayn’s mind from the way Liam’s fingers press at the dip of his spine like _I’m sorry for this_ –

“Do you even know _who_ this is, Zee?” Niall squeals and Zayn shrugs because he doesn’t.

“Please,” Liam pleads softly, his face pinched and those crinkles removed from around his eyes.  “I don’t like to make a fuss about – “

Niall barks out a laugh, tugs Zayn under an arm and sighs pleasantly with his nose in Zayn’s hair.

“He’s _Liam_ ,” Zayn says casually and the little smile Liam shoots him calms the tide.

Niall giggles and nods and pushes sticky fingers into Zayn’s hair.  “ _Liam Payne_ , my man.  Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Liam drops his chin with tight shoulders, shuffles nervous feet over the hardwoods in the hallway and Zayn thinks of saving him –

It’s a horrible idea, the thought of being a hero and a martyr and a _‘don’t mention it’_ after battling off the villain.

“He’s the Payno!” Niall exclaims between the looks they trade and the trembling fingers at Liam’s sides.  “Did you even watch the London Olympics?”

Zayn shrugs and Niall groans, whispers _‘he was the_ youngest competitor _in the boxing events and a bit of a runt in the middleweight class but he won gold and tell me you watched more than the gymnastics finals’_ until Zayn’s breath catches and Liam looks away.

“Mate, you were brilliant when you took on O’Neil even though I was cheering for the other guy,” Niall cheers until Liam looks up with bright eyes, the soft push of velvet pink to his bruised cheek.

He’s chewing at his sore lip and the scarred knuckles and the color just under his eye and the raw flesh of his mouth seem to make sense now.  Zayn can’t quite help the thrum of his heartbeat and the neat pricks up his skin and the way Liam’s smile goes a little shy when their eyes meet.  And the little stare Liam gives him like _‘thanks for not noticing’_ breaks apart his cells and he feels incredibly dumb –

 _Ignorant_ , a word he never enjoyed using but the sum of all things people would say about him in secondary school and when he first moved to London and when girls approach him, weighs his tongue down and catches on his teeth.

“I don’t mean to be a bother,” Liam says with a silent sigh and a hand waving over the still damp stain across his sweats, “but I was hoping – “

“Jesus Malik, what’d you do to him?” Niall teases and Zayn elbows him, _hard_ , and bites his shoulder in the name of vengeance.

Liam chuckles with a shaky hand pushing through his thick hair.  “I bought him coffee,” he explains, catching a corner of his bottom lip with neat teeth that disfigure his smile, “and spilt it on me’self.  Complete douche, I s’ppose.”

 _Not at all_ , Zayn thinks and winces at the way the words shift down his throat –

But he smiles and trembles at the way Liam grins at him like he knows, like he can hear Zayn’s thoughts.

“Sounds a lot like the beginning of a – “

Zayn shoves Niall away with a scowl and his laughter taunts Zayn from the kitchen before he twists back to Liam.  That fumbled grin that’s starting to annoy Zayn because it’s so, so _memorable_ is forced back onto Liam’s lips and he’s rubbing sweaty palms over the thick material of his hoodie and it’s all just so –

Zayn sighs and wrecks his hair with his fingers before he jerks his head down the hall.

“Bathroom is up the stairs, to the left.  Should be fresh towels in there if my dickhead flatmate – “

“You love me,” Niall interrupts, loudly, and Zayn can hear his smile from yards away.

“ – didn’t take them all.  I have some clean clothes you can borrow or keep,” Zayn stammers and it takes him a few quick breaths – and his eyes on the space between their bodies rather than those brown eyes – to recover before he adds, “Take your time.  I’ll just be, well, _here_.  Yeah, just here.”

Liam’s lips spread for a smile that nearly splits his wound again and Niall cackles in the background, over the choir of Queen and _‘can anybody find me somebody to love?’_ , and Zayn presses into the wall opposite of Liam until he brushes by with knuckles that catch on the ink over Zayn’s forearm.  It stings like a promise and wounds like a threat and he watches Liam disappear up through the kitchen, around the corner –

And he’s never been so attached to Freddie Mercury or the classics but _‘I just gotta get out of this prison cell, someday I’m gonna be free’_ repeats until it’s wrapped tightly around his cells and he remembers to start breathing again.

Niall flicks his forehead, cuddles him into the firm plaster of the wall until Zayn feels suffocated and he whispers a _‘you look pathetic and I can’t believe you didn’t know who he was’_ until Zayn groans and shoves away.

Careless fingers wrap around his wrist and Niall tugs him into the kitchen, hip-checks him into a chair at the breakfast table that’s a wreckage of newspapers and old dishes and empty tea mugs and last week’s hash brownies – that Zayn still catches Niall munching on even though they’re stale and brittle – before he drops a laptop and a plate of greasy eggs in front of him.  The screen is already queued up with a dozen videos featuring _Olympic boxer Liam Payne_ and Zayn feels accidentally infatuated as he watches.  Niall grins and drags a chair next to him with blackened bacon that’s crunchy and a bowl of warm porridge, the leftover orange juice carton between his fingers.

“He’s incredible,” Niall explains, huffing through the bacon and humming the _‘find me somebody to love’_ like he’s mocking him while shiny fingers click on the next video, “He’s from the Midlands.  The kid was a bit of a sensation there – “

 _I can imagine_ , Zayn muses as he watches Liam take down a guy twice his size, then last three rounds with a heavyweight, knocking out a former medalist from France in the first round.

“He barely made it through the qualifiers in London,” Niall adds with a tangerine mustache from the juice, “but he’s a scrapper.  I watched him take down that one bloke from Spain in five rounds with a smile on his face.  S’got a wicked right hook but his stamina is incredible, mate.  He’s really – “

Zayn misses the rest, too caught in the headlines – _‘Liam Payne takes gold in twelve-round final in London’_ and the _‘Young Rocky from Wolverhampton is the city’s shining star but refuses to comment on personal life’_ – and the videos on YouTube, the pictures across Tumblr, the trends on Twitter from nearly a year ago.  His breath hitches when Liam is knocked against the ropes in one video and he’s a little starry-eyed when Liam’s hand is raised in victory, that same goofy grin and crinkled eyes with curls matted to his head.

They click through amateur videos, grainy footage, a younger Liam with his mum and some pretty girl kissing his cheek.  There’s a small documentary from a local news station about the boy’s old school gym and his aspirations to be a fireman rather than a fighter.  There’s poorly taken photos of Liam in London, on dates with pretty girls and hiding from the cameras as he twines his fingers with a gorgeous lad – he looks Italian with his dark hair and sharp eyes and chiseled cheekbones – and there’s one of Liam with old mates at a club, champagne raised and a dumb grin pushed over pink lips.

He goes from long fringe and a lower weight class to floppy curls and his first victory to a buzz cut and then longer hair that’s almost a Mohawk and he’s almost too distracting with the way he’s always so incredibly –

 _Beautiful_ feels inappropriate and a little chaste and Zayn wants to use his tongue to lick the word over Liam’s tendons.

“He’s our age, you know,” Niall whispers with grease-stained lips and orange juice soiling Zayn’s button up and Zayn hides his shamefully pink cheeks in the hollow of Niall’s throat.

Warm fingers brush through his loose quiff, a thumb behind his ear while Niall laughs into his temple.  He doesn’t look at the screen, not even while Niall queues up his final match at the Olympics or the medal ceremony or the way the boy dances goofily in his trackies to Paul McCartney on closing night.

He bites at Niall’s collarbone when he starts serenading _‘we’re living in a heartbreak dream’_ in this low, gravelly voice that’s usually reserved for Drake verses after they’ve smoked on the front steps for hours.

“This is ridiculous,” he mumbles into Niall’s pale skin but he watches homemade footage of Liam training with his sister giggling and holding the camera phone – he has two sisters and lovely parents and a dog named _Loki_ and his heart stops because he feels like a creeper and a fan and –

Niall clumsily arches an eyebrow at him.  “Because?”

“Because he’s just some bloke, not the Flash,” Zayn sighs, teeth biting into his lip.

“More like Clark Kent,” Niall teases before pointing a finger at the screen when Liam throws a few calculated blows to a man three times his size, this time, “and this is when he turns into Superman.”

Zayn groans softly but let’s Niall’s fingers fiddle through his thick hair, anchor him to the ground again even though he feels a million meters in the clouds when he looks at the curve of Liam’s cheeks when he’s seventeen, the bruises he wears like a badge when he’s eighteen, his muscled arm raised in victory when he’s nineteen.  He curves around Niall to feel his laughter when they switch to a few more articles, sighs at the bold print – _Liam Payne and girlfriend Danielle part ways over training and secret relationships_ – and pretends the world just doesn’t understand that goofy smile or large brown eyes or rough knuckles –

And he doesn’t either.  He doesn’t know a thing about this boy except the way he puts something indescribable in Zayn’s lungs and erases all the little flaws Zayn sees in himself.

“ _So_ ,” Niall starts with that crooked grin injected with a smugness he learned last Halloween when he practiced it in the mirror while dressed as the Joker, “did you bring him here for a casual chat over tea or are you gonna shag him?”

Zayn huffs out a discontented noise and shoots him a scandalized look with fingers fisted into his shirt until Niall tips back with a giggle garbled by the carton of juice.  He nudges Zayn back, knocks their knees together before winking at him.

“C’mon bro,” Niall sighs with the corners of his mouth quirked, “It’s on ye mind, innit?  He’s quite fit.”

Zayn smacks his hand away when he reaches for the stale brownies and Niall scowls for a moment before snickering.

“And not interested – “

Niall rolls his eyes instantly, thumping Zayn’s shoulder with a halfhearted punch.  “ _Everyone_ is interested in you.  You’re a fucking traffic hazard or summat.  Your dick is like the Holy Grail and your face – “

“We’re not talking about my dick,” Zayn says dryly, pinching at the skin of Niall’s thigh.

Niall shrugs, steals the rest of Zayn’s cold eggs.  “If you don’t suck ‘im off, I might.”

He abandons his chair next to Zayn before Zayn can toss a fist at his chin and musses Zayn’s already wrecked hair on his exit.  He wriggles his bum to the Lupe Fiasco in the background, winking over his shoulder before leaving behind the mess of his kitchen disaster and hiking up the steps, crooning _‘and when he walked me home that night and all the stars were shining bright and then he kissed me’_ as Liam descends and there’s a little laughter behind his crinkled eyes that pauses the breath Zayn’s swallowing.

Liam looks sheepish, slightly abashed with wiggling toes over the hardwoods in the kitchen and one of Zayn’s old Optimus Prime shirts clinging tightly to his chest like woven skin.  He’s wearing a pair of Zayn’s vintage jeans with holes worn into the knees, the denim catching around the shapely muscles of his thighs but still hanging low on his hips.  The hem of the shirt rides up when Liam goes to scrub fingers through his still damp hair, immediately sliding to the warm nape of his neck and his skin is flushed, pink and incredibly inviting –

Zayn can see the ink scarred across his forearms and the taut skin of his stomach and the shapes provided by his torso and hips and – _fuck_.

They shift on an uneasy current, shuffling over the floor and then so close, Zayn tracing the pattern of freckles and moles and the way Liam’s nose wrinkles when he smiles hard enough.  The skin between denim and –

 _Oh_.

There’s nothing beneath the skintight material.

Liam looks at him like he’s embarrassed and fascinated by Zayn’s raw lips and he stares at Zayn like he’s something unmentionable.

Like he’s a naughty word in delicate lines of poetry or like he’s a tulip in a field of daises or an unexpected grey cloud in a sky of sunshine.

“So,” Zayn hums with spare fingers tracing the skin of Liam’s hip like he’s allowed to touch –

And the way Liam presses back into his hand says _he is_ –

“A boxer, yeah?”

Liam grins, nods slowly with his bottom lip trapped.  “I started when I was younger – “

“When you were bullied,” Zayn corrects and he feels so much like some sort of diehard fan, feels it in the blush that assaults his cheeks when Liam’s smile tips higher.

Liam nods again, swaying a little to Frankie Avalon and then the Killers.

“It was just something to do but then I got good at it,” he admits.

 _Great at it because you could never be_ bad _at anything_ , Zayn thinks even though he doesn’t mean to.

Liam puffs out a laugh with scrunched cheeks, the corners of his eyes wrinkled, the set of his eyebrows relaxed.

“And the Olympics,” Zayn wonders with a wandering hand, learning the smooth definition of muscles on his lower back, the top of Zayn’s jeans on his waist.  “Just summat to do?”

Liam squeaks out a sound, embarrassingly soft and precise.  He turns his head away a little to whisper _‘it was a dream come true’_ like a newborn teenager and Zayn times his next heartbeat with the slow exhale Liam’s lips part for.

“It just sort of happened,” Liam mumbles but Zayn doesn’t believe him.

Liam doesn’t fit like a _‘just sort of happened.’_   He’s focused and determined and all of those other adjectives to describe a man with an agenda.  And his fingers, calloused and blunt, drag over Zayn’s hip and reveal the curves of the thick heart inked over his stomach and Zayn doesn’t feel flustered –

He feels needy and desperate, his cock thickening and blurting out a spot of precome he swears Liam will notice if he ever takes his eyes off of Zayn’s mouth or his cheeks or his fluttering eyelashes.

“And you – “

Zayn chokes out a laugh, shaking his head.  “My story isn’t quite as interesting,” he says to the cracks in the floor rather than Liam.

Liam snorts.  “Everyone’s story is interesting.  It just depends on your audience.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, hides it from Liam but his teeth catch his bottom lip before clumsy words can spill out.

“I was thinking,” Liam says with fingers mapping out the symmetry on Zayn’s bones and tracing little symbols through the material of his shirt, “well, I wanted to take you to dinner but – “

He swallows and Zayn pulls away from that deflating feeling in his chest because he didn’t want that.  He didn’t anticipate anything from Liam and he knows every false feeling deep in your bones always comes from a sentence that’s broken apart with _but_.

Liam stammers for a second, tightens his hold on his jaw before finishing, “I wanted to take you out but ‘m not really allowed to date while training and – “

Zayn grins, knocks his knuckles over the back of Liam’s hand and shifts his chin up like he’s okay with it.

“Not a problem Payno,” he insists, thumbing the hollow beneath Liam’s chin until he lifts his eyes and he’s carefree, wave-ridden with his smirk because the commotion in his ears and the thrum in his blood doesn’t speak disappointment –

It echoes _predictable_ and his life has never been anything other than that.

Liam blinks at him, shifts a little uncomfortably before offering up a shy smile and a nod.

He watches Liam slip into his trainers and fix his hoodie over the too small shirt and shuffle on a snapback as they move towards the door.  It’s a ricochet in his ears – the flood of his heart and the _‘wait maybe I was wrong’_ sliding over his tongue – but he keeps that grin pressed to his mouth until Liam spins on his heels and then –

It’s not what he _predicted_ – detailed fingers under his chin to direct the angle and a soft mouth pressed to his and chapped lips writing out mistimed words and a hand splayed over the small of his back to keep him from retreating – but his lashes quiver shut on instinct and his blood surges hot with the sensation.  He doesn’t hesitate when he kisses back, shuffles forward and Liam laughs into his mouth with little trembles under his muscles when Zayn goes pliant for his touch.

The un-expectation reaches its height before he catches his breath, Liam dragging back with their lips catching from the impact.  Fingers smooth down his throat when he swallows, flutter under the erratic rhythm of his pulse.

Liam smirks, exhales a happy noise that Zayn almost misses – _almost_.

He feels Liam’s palm leaving the dip of his spine and casually follows the touch for a beat until Liam giggles, pressing their foreheads together.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, close enough that Zayn could kiss him again if he _intended_ to –

If he believed in _happily ever after_ and all of its meditated bullshit –

“ – I just wanted to know what that would be like just in case I never get the opportunity.”

Zayn scowls and scrunches his eyebrows but his lips twitch upward and he doesn’t say anything back.  He merely reaches behind Liam, covers his spare hand on the doorknob and they twist together – and twist away and delay for a fourth of a minute – before Liam scurries shyly out into the streets again.

He doesn’t watch from the doorway as Liam disappears into the crowd, just waits until the madness and the tempest dies down and makes a face at Niall when he’s waiting at the top of the stairs with a tray of chocolate chip biscuits and spicy tea, just the way Zayn likes it.

 

|+|

 

Zayn huffs through a half a pack of cigarettes that night with Niall buried beneath the afghan, bare ankles poking out and snoring into Zayn’s pillow.  It’s a useless fixation and it doesn’t soothe his crave.  He doesn’t remember the first cigarette or the fourth, exhaling greyish clouds into a London sky but he remembers the salty taste on the rim of Liam’s lips and the hint of chamomile tea behind his teeth and the burn of his fingers over the line of Zayn’s spine.

And he remembers, through the sixth cigarette, the way foreign lips felt like _home_ in the most discouraging way.

 

|+|

 

He remembers being fourteen and ditching out on all of his sport-required activities to hide out behind the bleachers and read _the Catcher in the Rye_ , even though he didn’t understand half of it at the time.  But there’s something about _‘Life is a game that one plays according to the rules’_ that sticks to his marrow until he’s eighteen and figures it all out –

There are no rules; just predisposed thoughts made into requirements by the laws of life and love.

He doesn’t know why he thinks about that, a week removed from calloused fingers and chapped lips and _an Olympic medalist_ , but it works itself around his spine between the aisles of non-fiction and autobiographies at the book shop with Michael sprawled over the front counter and punk rock music in the distance.

Somewhere in the middle of books about Tolstoy and old, dusty collections of Twain, the sun ripples warm yellow glow down the bare skin at the back of his neck and his eyes flick up casually when a throat is cleared and Liam’s leaning on a stack of heavy textbooks about human anatomy – and it’s so ironic or _coincidental_ , he can’t quite decide.  He’s got a lazy smile on his lips, head cocked sideways with a pair of Ray Bans shoved over his forehead and broad shoulders snugged tightly in a grossly orange JW jumper.  The faded stretch of skin on his round cheek is a pale blackberry now but his lip is healed and his knuckles are that soft tan again and Zayn’s distracted enough by those crinkled eyes that he missed the cardboard cup that Liam shoves at him.

“It’s earl grey mixed with some earthy herbs,” Liam explains, his voice a cracked shyness that tugs on Zayn like gravity.  Chapped lips part for a grin and Zayn sniffs at the tea as Liam adds, “It’s healthy for you.”

Zayn snorts, pulling off the plastic lid and he sips slowly while the heady scent invades his senses.

“Tea’s not supposed to be healthy,” Zayn comments with a crooked smirk but he keeps sipping until his throat feels raw and his skin tingles alive.

Liam frowns, kicks playfully at Zayn’s foot before spinning around him to drag careful fingers over the spines of a few books.

“Loads of things are healthy for you,” Liam says with a hint of sunlight and something else behind his eyes when he glances over his shoulder, “in doses.”

Zayn grins with an arched eyebrow, chuckles at the color that drapes itself over Liam’s cheeks when he realizes and they exchange daring looks like –

If Liam was bolder and Zayn didn’t feel so much like a virgin anticipating a first time, they probably _could_.  In the middle of the history section or by the travel books with Zayn shoved against the shelves and Liam’s trousers around his ankles and Zayn’s tongue lubing Liam’s cock and –

He stutters out a breath while Liam browses over a few titles Zayn’s certain he’s never heard of and their silence is ruined by the soundtrack of that one Pink Floyd song he can never remember the name of.

“I’m up to chapter five,” Liam says, sheepish and with his good hand stroking the stretch of skin at the top of his spine.

Zayn diverts his eyes from the line of Liam’s jaw, the stubble staining his skin and focuses on the excitement behind those brown eyes.  He sips at the tea to calm his nerves, knocking over a pile of reference books to get closer.

“Skipping training to read?  Do you know how gangster that is?” Zayn teases, laughs at the fingers grazing his hip as a response.

Liam bites his lip, scrunches his nose in delight rather than disinterest.  “Don’t be a twat.”

Zayn wriggles his eyebrows, absently propelling himself into those fingers until they almost, almost sneak under his shirt.  “You came all the way here just to tell me,” Zayn remarks, steadying his breaths on the thumb outlining the bones in his hip.

The noise Liam releases is somewhere between a cough and a laugh and it collides beautifully in Zayn’s ears, the sweetest disturbance that’s accompanied by pink cheeks and even pinker lips sliding upwards.

“No,” he giggles, shifting from foot to foot with that twitch to his lips that makes Zayn want to kiss them still.  Thick fingers wreck his half-quiff before he stammers, “I’d like to take you to dinner and maybe a midnight viewing of _the Dark World_.”

Zayn looks up from the hazy steam from his cup, the swirl of cream Liam’s added even if he doesn’t know how much Zayn loves milk in his tea instead.  There’s a loud, loud half of him that wants to say _no_ on instinct, that wants to remind Liam – and the world – that he doesn’t fall for silly things like a nice meal and an hour of discussing the importance of Nick Fury in each of the Marvel films.

But he _can’t_.

Not with those large, optimistic eyes watching him and fingers stroking a _please_ over his sternum and he sips at his tea to redistribute his strength on the words weighing down the leftover carbon monoxide in his chest.

Michael’s singing softly to that Semisonic song in the background and _I’m the one who wants to take you home_ reminds him so much of that one episode of _Friends_ and being back in Bradford and this little helpless smile that keeps threatening his lips wins the war when Liam flutters his eyelashes like he already knows Zayn’s response –

“Thought you weren’t allowed to date,” Zayn says instead with a teasing grin that unsettles all of Liam’s armor.

Liam shrugs, rearranges half of Twain’s works in the wrong order.  “Maybe _the Payno_ isn’t allowed to date,” he replies with a hint of cheekiness that Zayn can almost taste, “but _Liam_ is going to.”

Zayn blinks at him, strange fascination woven around him like second skin and his knees go a little weak – _pathetic_ – at the crooked smile on Liam’s lips, the haphazard streams of light that color his eyes a warm caramel.  There’s a determination in the wrinkle of Liam’s brow like he’s half-expecting rejection but unwilling to accept it.  But there’s no precaution in the strain of muscles in Liam’s forearm when his hand grips Zayn’s hip with fingers that put enough pressure to leave behind bruises on his skin.

He looks away, immediately, and sighs at the breath that tickles up his neck when Liam’s close enough.  He could shove back, twist away, stomp off if he needed to but his brain doesn’t send the proper signals to his nerves and he catches the hitch in Liam’s breath when he’s quiet for too long.

“I can’t,” he breathes out, dimming his smile at the way Liam’s shoulders fall a little.

There’s no magic in a _yes_ and he refuses to associate happy endings with anything other than an extra surge of dopamine through the blood.

He flicks his eyes back to Liam, to the rough knuckles going white from the hold on Zayn’s waist.  He smiles down at the space where they’re separated before tipping his head back.

“I’m sorry, I thought that maybe – “

It’s daft, the way his fingers immediately fly up and catch in the bulky material of Liam’s jumper just to keep him from fleeing and he pretends not to hear Michael bellow _‘use protection kids because this sexual tension is contagious.’_

“I’d like to,” Zayn adds, his sideways smile spreading his lips and exposing his white teeth and his tongue presses firmly to them to soothe the ache behind his cheeks when Liam frowns a little.  “I just can’t tonight.”

Liam nods but doesn’t retreat.  He thumbs out a few unheard melodies from Bob Dylan in the distance right under Zayn’s shirt, teasing the waistband.

“See it’s one of my best mate’s birthday and Harry would absolutely murder me if I didn’t come by for his dinner,” Zayn explains with an unintentional low voice, like they’re on a level that requires secrets and hushed tones and little smiles that only they’ll understand.

“He’s a bit of a twat like that,” he adds, stretching his neck and his lips scratch over the shell of Liam’s hot, pink ear.  “Maybe another time – “

“I’ll be your date,” Liam says quickly, jerking back – and Zayn wonders if it’s from the embarrassment or from the realization or just because _they’re not like that_ – with a clumsy grin.  Something stuns his features stiff and his brow crinkles when Zayn hums, involuntary actions turning his expression mortified.

“I mean,” he stutters quickly with twitching hands, shifty feet, “I mean, if that’s okay?  If you don’t mind, I could maybe, I dunno, accompany you or summat?”

Zayn laughs gently, leaning back into the shelves until the metal stings.  “S’okay.”

There’s a brightness in Liam’s eyes and Zayn looks away to quiet the tsunami in his chest but a pinky, maybe a ring finger twists around Zayn’s and he swears all of this will be just a sentence in his life’s story.

 

|+|

 

He promises himself that Liam will not be a _chapter_ or an _epilogue_ or an _opening dedication to_ when all of this is said and done.

 

|+|

 

“You don’t have to do this, y’know,” Zayn says, huddled next to Liam on the front steps outside of Harry’s building with frosty breath and Liam’s cheeks a summer pink from the cold.

He chews at his lip with nervous teeth, his skin terribly cold and incredibly desperate for Liam’s strong fingers but he shoves those thoughts down when Liam’s lips stretch wide for a smile and he gives Zayn that half-arsed wink that heats his blood.

“But we’re here,” Liam replies, the wind knocking his hair out of place and his leather jacket refuses to cover up the hugging Henley beneath with the first few buttons undone.

His fingers have been itching for a cigarette since he met Liam on a corner closer to this side of London – even though Liam offered to pick him up from his own flat and Zayn, wholeheartedly, refused to subject Liam to another incident with Niall – but he’s nervous and trying to impress Liam, even if that sounds stupid.  Even if the dark sky with its haloing stars looks simply dull compared to the glow of the street lamps over Liam’s cheeks or the way his jeans fit or the casual arm that brushes over Zayn’s back to keep him close when they walked the quiet streets together.

He swallows down an _‘amazing’_ when Liam’s eyes crinkle at all of his own bad jokes and hides his smile when Liam chats up his favorite scenes from the new Spider-Man trailer until Liam beams at him from centimeters away, breathing visible warm breaths that tickle Zayn’s cheek.

He leans in – and Zayn follows – and whispers _‘and I want to’_ before Zayn can take another breath and that’s enough.  It’s enough encouragement and just the right amount of certainty behind white teeth for Zayn to shove through the front door of the building –

And he reaches back, unconsciously, to tangle his fingers with Liam’s free hand while the other grips the neck of an unopened wine bottle.

 

|+|

 

“You’re late,” Louis says in a flat voice when he tugs open the heavy door to their loft.  He leans in the doorway with half of a smile and he never mastered his flair for dramatics – no matter how much he argues otherwise – but he tries to shoot Zayn a scowl and a curled upper lip out of spite.

Zayn smirks at his tousled hair – probably from Harry’s fingers – and his half-buttoned Topman shirt – again, Harry’s fingers – with skintight jeans, bare feet, and far too much scruff on his jaw like he’s forgotten to shave.  Those blue eyes remind Zayn of island coasts and his stealthy smile echoes _‘partners in crime’_ like they’d decided on the second time they met, courtesy of Harry, in the middle of London traffic and bottles of cheap tequila.

“Lou,” Zayn says while clearing his throat, sidestepping a little for Liam to come into view, “this is Liam.”

Louis waggles his eyebrows, fakes a wide smirk while tugging the door further open.  “Right, cheers, thanks for coming,” he says carelessly and in one breath before tangling fingers into the thick hair at the nape of Zayn’s neck and dragging him inside.  “And how dare you bring last minute guests for Harry’s birthday.  He’s cooking and you know he’s shite in the kitchen.”

“I heard that, babe!” Harry yells from the kitchen, peeking around the corner with floppy curls, a cheek dusted in flour and a wide grin just for Zayn.

“Oh, bless, so glad someone invited you to _my_ conversation,” Louis hisses, still tugging Zayn further inside.

“Don’t be rude to the birthday boy,” Harry sighs, wiping his hands on a silly apron with delicate edges.

“Sorry,” Louis mumbles, digging his fingers into Zayn’s skin until he winces.  “I forgot.”

“Surely you didn’t forget this morning when I was trying to sleep off my hangover and you were blowing him in the shower,” Gemma, with her hair streaked purples and blondes and indigos, says from the other side of the living room, by the large windows that act like walls and look like large eyes over the city.

Harry blushes while Louis flips her off, sneering at her.

“Your sister had more fun celebrating your birthday last night than you did,” Louis comments as Zayn slips away from his errant fingers, elbowing Louis back when he swiftly reaches for Zayn again.

“Sounded more like he had massive amounts of fun in your bedroom,” Gemma remarks with a teasingly arched eyebrow, swirling her glass of wine and tipping it towards Louis.

“He was drunk,” Louis replies immediately.

“And you were horny,” Harry counters with that smirk that accents his dimples and leaves Louis grinning back.

“Manners, love,” Louis coos, even with his hands framing Harry’s hips and his lips just under his jaw, a tongue to his pulse point.  “We have guests.”

“Oh, right,” Harry cheers, slim hips knocking Louis away and he’s maneuvering around the plush, creamy couch and glass coffee table to get closer to Zayn.  “Our Zayner has a date, yes?”

Zayn ducks his head to hide the tint of his cheeks but a warm, warm hand gentles over the bottom of his spine and he looks up at crinkly eyes, a wide smile, and feels lost.  Completely _lost_.

Lost on this boy and the way he brushes their hips together and looks, if only briefly, confident like he can take on the world with Zayn right next to him –

 _Not a chapter, not a prologue, just a nameless character_ , he reminds himself, even after he pushes back into Liam’s touch for the smirk he gets in return.

“Hey, I’m Liam.”

Harry freezes, hitches a breath that sounds like a whine while Gemma sputters on her wine and Louis trades looks between them like they’re absolutely mental.

“Fuck off,” Harry gasps, blinking at Liam for a long second before reaching out to shake his extended hand.  “It’s a joke, right?”

“What is?” Louis asks, flopping down on the couch and Gemma smacks the back of his head immediately.

“Shut it.”

“You shut it,” he scowls back, flitting his eyes back toward Harry and Liam.

Harry swallows, trembles out a smile that’s half the size of the moon while tightening his grip around Liam’s hand.  “ _Excuse you_ , Zayn, who gave you the right to bring me such an ace birthday gift.”

“He’s not for you,” Zayn grumbles, leaving behind the _‘he’s for me’_ in the center of his throat because it sounds possessive – and everything Zayn refuses to be.

“I brought wine,” Liam says with a small shrug, that shyness pulling his cheeks higher while his teeth twist his bottom lip.

“Oh, bless,” Louis sighs happily, flinching when Gemma swats him again.  “You did good with this one, Zaynie.”

Zayn groans and stubs the noise in the sleeve of Liam’s jacket, feels a hint of dopamine released into his system at the sound of Liam’s soft laughter just near the shell of his ear.

“Lou,” Harry whines, finally pulling away from Liam’s hand to look over his shoulder, “This is Liam Payne.  _The Liam Payne_.  You know?  The Payno?”

Louis snorts, cocking his head back to shoot Gemma an upside down smile that she rolls her eyes at, giggling.

“If you’re quite finished,” Louis hums, kicking his feet up on the other arm of the couch, “I have no idea what you’re on about.”

Zayn smiles while Liam snickers, passing Harry the wine bottle with shaky fingers still drawing little amateurish circles into the small of Zayn’s back.

“The Olympic gold medalist, you dolt,” Gemma huffs, nudging onto the couch next to Louis.

“The kid with the golden gloves,” Harry adds, shuffling back to the kitchen but he offers Liam a grateful smile with spread pink lips and star-struck eyes.  “He’s won at least a dozen matches in the past two years, Lou.  When he was a lightweight, he beat Khan – “

“Who?” Louis wonders with a scrunched brow,

“ – and then he beat Fowler,” Harry adds.

“Never head of ‘im.”

“And he went _five rounds_ with Ogogo – “

“Six,” Liam mumbles, pressing a smile to Zayn’s temple that keeps him warm for hours to come, not that he’ll admit it to anyone.

Louis groans loudly, sits up from his sprawled position and nearly knocks the wine from Gemma’s hand when he asks, “Do you play footy at all, mate?”

Liam grins, his thumb mapping out a constellation – _and a way home_ , Zayn tells himself – over Zayn’s spine before he nods.  “Massive West Brom fan,” he cheers like his skin is suddenly alive and his smirk is contagious.  “I play a little too.  Mainly midfield but my mates back home said I’d make a wicked goalie.”

“Perfect,” Louis beams, forearms on his knees while shuffling his feet under Gemma.  “The lads and I meet up two Sundays out the month for a few pickup games just outside of Hyde Park.  You’re invited.  Now someone get me a drink.”

Harry pushes out a lopsided smile from the archway, shaking a wooden spoon at Louis like a threat but Harry Styles is anything but intimidating.

“I’m on it,” Liam says, fingers twisting in Zayn’s shirt before he bumps their hips together and smiles when he pulls away.  He does a neat little shrug out of his jacket that’s three-fourths suave and partly clumsy with the way the sleeves get caught around his wrists.

Louis sighs a content noise, spread across the cushions again, before he whispers, “I think I’m in love with him, Zaynie.  He’s not a cunt like you.”

Zayn scowls at him over the back of the couch and watches Liam smile at Harry before easing around him into the kitchen.  Harry winks at him, eyebrows raised and he mouths out _‘Liam fucking Payne, are you serious?’_ in Zayn’s direction but his eyes are still a little out of focus from tan skin and pliant lips and the stretch of cotton from his Henley around those broad shoulders is a bit distracting.

“You’re burning the garlic toast,” Louis sings from the couch, feet propped in Gemma’s lap now.

Harry pouts and flicks him a finger before turning.  “I don’t know why I’m so incredibly in love with you, still.”

Louis grins smugly but his cheeks are christened a delicate pink that Zayn notices instantly.

“Because I always look smart in a suit,” Louis offers, tipping his head back and wriggling his eyebrows upside down at Harry.

“Probably because he sucks you off like a proper whore,” Gemma teases, sipping her wine loudly.

Louis scowls but doesn’t retaliate, just wiggles his bare toes at her before groaning.  “Maybe it’s because I’m the only one who’ll eat your shit cooking?”

Harry pulls a face, whining out a noise of protest.  “You lot are awful.  Why kind of little family are you?  I don’t know why I bother with you.”

Louis and Gemma smile together with loose lips before they reply, in synch, “Because we love you.”

Harry doesn’t disagree.  He merely fixes that stupid bandana that keeps his curls pushed back before stomping back into the kitchen.  It drags slow laughter from Louis and Gemma and Zayn crowds with them on the couch until they’re all touching and he can’t help but agree with Harry – they are like family, his family, his peace and quiet –

And, for reasons he’s not ready to understand, he thinks Liam would fit nicely into that space just below his heart and above his lungs in-between everything he associates with serenity.

 

|+|

 

The toast is only partly scorched and the pasta is cooked just a little past al dente but Zayn doesn’t comment when Louis looks so pleased with Harry, fingers stroking the nape of his neck until Harry’s skin flushes and his smile is so affectionate.  There’s something proud in those blue eyes that distracts everyone from Liam and Zayn’s so thankful for the hands Harry keeps sneaking under Louis shirt just before Eleanor, with her doe eyes and wavy brown hair, and Ashton, Gemma’s latest crush whose in a cover band and has long limbs and unruly hair, arrive.

They fit around the small dinner table Louis insisted upon from Ikea with its glass top and neat linen hiding the marks on the legs when Harry mucked it up carrying it up three flights of stairs.  They pass around bowls of salad while Harry lights silly scented candles that remind Zayn of the wilderness rather than coastal plains, trading red and white wine bottles between their hands.

Louis shoves a paper crown over Harry’s curls and serves up the saucy pasta with a grin, eyes like fluorescent headlights whenever he stares at Harry –

And it’s been this way since Louis was eighteen and Harry was barely surviving puberty at a boarding school just outside of London.  Louis will never admit to it, always plays the _‘Harry was in love with me first’_ card whenever they share the story of their clumsy romance but Zayn knows better.  He knows Louis thinks of Harry as some sort of stumbling hero with his endless limbs and soft muscles and broad smile and raspy voice.  He lets Harry curl around him when, really, he’s trying to find all of the spots between Harry’s skin to hide in.  He’s nothing but an avid fan of Harry’s long, slow stories, even if he gives him shit and interrupts every six seconds and rolls his eyes whenever Harry says _‘well, actually’_ and, on rainy weekends, he pretends to not want to watch _Love, Actually_ for the hundredth time but queues up the film anyway with a bowl of popcorn, their favorite duvet, and kisses over the creamy skin of Harry’s neck until the end credits appear.

“Might I remind you two,” Eleanor starts with a pointed finger and bright eyes and Louis groans on command, “that it was me who started this little love affair between you.”

Louis snorts while Harry hides his blush behind a linen napkin, knocking their bare ankles under the table.

“Yes, after our relationship didn’t work out and I dumped you,” Louis reminds her with a quirked up grin.

“After _I_ realized you had a small cock,” Eleanor counters with a shifted eyebrow.  “Perfect size for tight arseholes, my love.”

Louis swats her hand away when she reaches out to pet his cheek and Liam nearly chokes on his wine while the others sputter out laughter.  Zayn buries his giggle in a fist, a shaky hand shoved against his thigh and he chases that warm feeling in his chest with wine when he glances down to see rough knuckles dragging over his denim.

There’s something amused and delighted over Liam’s lips, even twisted around the edge of a fork, and Zayn buries that feeling – one he won’t name or recognize or _understand_ for a long, long time – between his liver and kidneys.

Instead, he skims fingers over the tendons in Liam’s hand and listens to Gemma tease Harry about his first few girlfriends with her head on Ashton’s shoulder and Louis wrapping an arm around the back of Eleanor’s chair.  He focuses on the swell of acoustic music in the background – because Harry’s addicted to underground university radio rather than mainstream dance music – and bites at his lips when Liam’s fingers catch the rhythm, drumming every other chord along Zayn’s leg.

Gemma passes around plates of cake with thick, thick icing from a little bakery back in Holmes Chapel while Louis sets out cups of steaming tea and Zayn is intensely aware when Liam shuffles his chair closer.  He twists a little towards him, even if he’s trying to keep up with Harry’s stories about economy studies, and watches the corner of his eyes crinkle and the width of his smile and the way he’s in such awe of all of them like he’s never had this before.

It creates this unsteady sensation in Zayn’s blood and he bites a little too firmly at his lip when Liam stares back, his thumb sliding on the inside of Zayn’s thigh and all of his resolve diffuses into willingness just for the hopeless smile Liam offers.

 

|+|

 

When Louis steals Liam away to show him their view of the city and the neon lights in the distance and the purple skyline just above London, the others corner him in the pantry and huddle around him with prodding fingers and anticipation on their tongues.

“Where’d you find him?” Gemma asks first, narrowed eyes almost as dangerous as Louis’ sharp tongue.

“Are you paying him to be here?” Eleanor asks next but she’s a little too delighted to be imposing.

“C’mon Malik, tell us,” Harry draws out with that lopsided smile like he’s in on it all, “how’d you get so lucky?”

 _Lucky_.  He hasn’t thought of that word, not quite yet.  Not when he’s still trying to wrap his brain – and some of the soft tissue around his heart – around the idea that, possibly, Liam Payne fancies him.

Just a little.

He sighs and gives them a resigned smile, trying to filter through all of their small eyes in the dark, cramped space.

“The book shop where I work,” he says, careful, slowly, “He stopped in one day and, well, it’s nothing really.  Just mates, I’m sure.”

“Just mates,” Harry repeats, quietly and even slower while Eleanor and Gemma giggle to each other.

“Bullshit,” Ashton laughs and Gemma quickly throws a hand over his mouth to silence the sound.

“He looks at you like it’s a little more than that, Zayn,” Eleanor moans, the noise a little obscene but perfectly appropriate when Zayn thinks about the fingers and the warm hand and the palm-sized imprint on the small of his back, no doubt.

“He doesn’t,” he argues, instead, shuffling into a few shelves of canned products.  He drags nervous fingers through his product-stiff hair and waits until they look away.  “I’m not proper dating material – “

Harry sighs loudly, kicking at Zayn’s shin.  “Shut it.  You are.  You’re sickly beautiful and I won’t have you taking a piss at yourself on my birthday.”

“Right,” Gemma agrees, curling around Harry, “that’s his job.”

Harry nods and Zayn just wants to shove them all away and stumble into a pair of strong arms and –

His breath hitches, loudly, and the others grin like they already know even if he’s trying so hard to disguise it.

“You’re all arseholes,” he grumbles but it only stirs an echo of laughter that shrinks his shoulders and leaves him staring at the ground.

“You’re pathetic,” Harry teases and reaches forward to tangle his fingers with Zayn’s in his hair, tugging a little before pressing a sloppy kiss to his temple, adding, “and so obvious, Malik, you’re _glowing_.”

Zayn tries to shed his embarrassed smile when he knocks Harry away but Ashton and Eleanor are already singing lines of old Amy Winehouse and Gemma’s whispering _‘and what a catch, babe, he’s an Olympian and so fit and I’m quite jealous’_ even while Ashton watches with a little hint of envy –

And when they all tumble out of the pantry with laughs and Zayn’s cheeks thoroughly saturated with blush, Liam’s waiting on the other side with a tiny, shy smile that echoes their words and Louis’ perched on the counter, adding brandy to his tea and shaking his head with amusement.

 

|+|

 

“How sad are those two,” Louis remarks from Harry’s lap on the couch, jerking his head to the large windows where Gemma and Ashton are thumbing through Harry’s old vinyl records and sketching nervous fingers over each other’s wrists every few beats.

Eleanor giggles, a little pissed off the bottle of vodka Louis was passing around an hour ago and the three glasses of wine from dinner.

“Just as horrible as you two about two years ago,” she remarks with a content sigh.  She’s sprawled over the fuzzy carpet – some sort of animal fur Louis, again, insisted upon – with an empty bottle in one hand and her spare one texting blindly.

“We were not,” Harry huffs, even with Louis’ fingers in his curls and an arm draped over Louis’ thighs.

“You were,” Eleanor argues halfheartedly.

“Just a little bit, lads,” Zayn agrees, absently counting off the ways Liam’s fingers press into his wrist and scribble out nonsensical words that Zayn wants to decipher.

“Yes, well,” Louis announces, stirring slightly until he’s comfortable again, “at least we’re nothing like that anymore.”

Eleanor flicks up her eyebrows.  “Yes, the honeymoon is quite over.”

Harry clears his throat softly, looks away while Louis puckers his lips like defiance rattles broadly through his chest.  Zayn bites his bottom lip raw, wedging his hips closer to Liam’s on the small expanse of couch they’re permitted and he can see it in Louis’ eyes – the inevitable.

“Quite right, love, it is,” Louis hums, sloppily emptying another bottle of wine into his glass.  He tips it back for a long swallow while Harry furrows his brow and hums along to James Morrison as if it’s the kind of distraction he _needs_ –

But the buzz of _‘when I love you a little bit less than before’_ echoes through the roomy loft and Zayn thinks he almost, almost hears the whimper in Harry’s voice.

“I mean, after all,” Louis continues with a slur and wild eyes, “my poor, poor Mr. Styles is just now, a month ago, accepting my proposal of marriage even though I’ve been asking him – “

“Begging,” Eleanor corrects with a lazy grin.

“I don’t think the three times while we shagged or the four times you proposed in your pants while being pissed off your arse counts,” Harry whispers with downcast eyes and a small frown.

“ – since last July,” Louis declares, toasting at nothing.  He takes another sip, grinning mischievously, “And, of course, there’s the fact that my sweet, sweet husband-to-be also expects us to move out of this posh palace into some small, tiny house closer to his home – “

“I was willing to compromise so we’d be closer to Doncaster and the twins,” Harry interrupts and he’s speaking to Zayn rather than anyone else.

Zayn nods back and tries not to look sympathetic because Harry has never, ever been patronizing to him.  Not once.

“Did I mention that we’re trying to adopt, also?” Louis groans, sliding out of Harry’s lap with a hiccup.

“Only _fourteen times_ the other day,” Gemma calls out with a snicker.

“Twice last Sunday,” Ashton adds.

“Fuck off you two and snog already,” Louis grumbles, knocking over the empty glass.  He settles his feet in Harry’s crotch and pushes his limp fringe from his eyes.  “The agencies think he’s too young and I’m not motivated enough and – “

“Well, they’re half right,” Zayn teases with a crooked grin that unsettles Louis and drags something endearing over his shiny pink lips.

“You’re a right tosser, Zaynie,” Louis says in a singsong voice, nearly falling over to crawl closer to them.  “It’s one of the many, many reasons why I adore you.  And your new gold medal shag-mate.”

Liam squeaks out a noise, buries it against the nape of Zayn’s neck and Zayn attempts to subdue his grimace towards Louis but fails.

“He’s not my – “

Louis waves him off quickly, sighing.  “Whatever.  He’s fit and you should fuck.”

“Oi, quit ruining the mood,” Gemma barks, cuddled under one of Ashton’s arms and there’s a new pink, blushing mark just under her jaw.

Zayn chews on the sore flesh of his lip until _courage_ sinks scorching hot into his bones and he turns enough that their noses almost brush and he can see the icing frosted over Liam’s tongue when he smiles back.  And _wow_ it’s like the poetry he’s read about and the quotes he took notes on and the lines of endless words he’s thought of to describe this feeling he knows is just a trick of the mind rush over him when Liam’s eyes light up.

He shakes away the thought –

That maybe Liam’s thinking the same thing or maybe Liam’s drunk on something other than alcohol or maybe _‘and they lived happily’_ really makes sense in this world.

He wraps his fingers loosely around Liam’s wrist with an inescapable grin that’s a lot crooked and aches over his cheekbones and tugs him up with all of the strength behind his muscles.  His thumb brushes over _‘only time will tell…’_ and his heart skips at the way Liam shuffles nervously closer like he trusts Zayn.

“C’mon champ,” he teases, low and breathy – like his voice gets when he first wakes up or seconds after an orgasm – with a tilted grin.  “I know a place – “

Something squeaks over Liam’s lips, like anticipation and anxiousness and _I’d go anywhere with you_ , but it resembles a smile that’s bitten mild by sharp teeth.  But Zayn doesn’t look away and he goes a bit numb when Liam rearranges their hands so their fingers can twist around each other and Zayn doesn’t feel the need to finish the rest of his words.

He leads Liam around the conversation – or arguments, he can’t tell – about children and _we’re just kids still Lou_ that Harry whines and the need for more wine toward the door and down three flights out the back door to the sweet night and a better view.

 

|+|

 

The garden behind Harry’s loft is a small square between four adjacent buildings with fairy lights to shine around the walkway and a small bench in the corner and vines climbing the walls.  It’s endless green, even in the beginning of February, and the roses haven’t bloomed yet but there’s still a few winter flowers braving the cold that freckle over the landscape like a lighthouse effect.  The ivy circles a small, unused fountain and wraps around the legs of the bench and scatters over the edges of the sidewalk out into the streets.

“This is beautiful,” Liam gasps, and Zayn’s not sure if he’s talking about the scenery or _him_ but he decides the former sounds a little more accurate –

Even though Liam’s eyes are on him and his fingers squeeze tighter around Zayn’s and his next breath sounds so amazed.

“This whole place is,” Liam pauses, swirls them around to the bench and Zayn doesn’t fight him, “It’s a lot better than my silly flat.  I can see why Louis doesn’t want to leave.”

Zayn nods, pressing his smile into the collar of Liam’s leather jacket and they watch each other for a moment before easing down onto the bench.  There’s an open window a few flights up and music spills out into the center, something perfectly intimate and soft and Zayn’s waiting for this to all fall apart –

The fairy tale and the moment and the way he thinks about Sebastian from _the Little Mermaid_ because _‘you wanna kiss the girl’_ harmonizes in the back of his mind.

He pulls out a Marlboro, twitching an eyebrow upward when Liam watches him, before asking, “D’ya mind?”

Liam shrugs but his shoulders are a little too tense and there’s a hint of something underlined behind those spider-like gold eyelashes.

It stings a spot of guilt into Zayn’s bloodstream when he wraps his lips around the filter, something aching behind his fingers when he flicks the flame to the tip but it’s absorbed by the night air when he takes his first drag and exhales a thick blue cloud into the dark, dark sky.

“They weren’t always like this,” Liam wonders, humming out a few bars of Eric Clapton, “right?”

Zayn snorts, shaking his head.  He drags the pad of his thumb over his bottom lip, cocks his head back to watch the distant stars and the purple clouds for a second.  The wind catches his next exhale and swirls mist around their heads.

“They were pretty gross when I first met them,” Zayn admits with a thick smile and his eyes crinkle at the thought of Louis always climbing into Harry’s lap, Harry’s long fingers working under his collar.  He covers a cough with a laugh, letting the smoke saturate his chest.  “Couldn’t stay apart, those two.  Louis was quite manic and Harry was – he was _the calm_.  He kept Lou together.”

Liam nods with an absent hand on Zayn’s thigh again, squeezing in time to the foundation a bass guitar creates.

Zayn laughs breathily, still watching the sky for a laser show – or a tidal wave of shooting stars.

“Hazza was always roaming around naked,” Zayn adds, catching his lip with his teeth while rolling the smoke on his tongue.  “And Lou was – he was fucking horny, all of the time.  Shagging about in every room.  Sadistic bastards, mate.  They never knew how to lock a damn door.”

Liam grins into the round of Zayn’s shoulder, his foot brushing Zayn’s and he almost, almost hears Liam whisper _‘yes, you look wonderful tonight’_ under his breath.

“And then – “

There’s a pause in Liam’s words, fingers scratching out the _‘what happened’_ that his lips refuse to say.

Zayn swallows, sniffs at the damp air and drags in smoke with a hint of nearby moss.  The wind kicks back again, stirs in his hair and Liam cuddles just a little closer with rough knuckles, a soft palm, broad shoulders –

He clears his throat to distract himself, shifts a bit to hide the outline of his semi before turning his eyes toward Liam.  He’s expecting those large eyes and soft mouth and warm cheeks but he’s not expecting the fairy lights to accent his dimple or the smooth caramel of his birthmark or the synergy behind his breathing.

“The same thing that always happens,” Zayn says with a throaty tone.  He blows the smoke away from Liam, his thigh jumping and pressing into Liam’s touch.  “People grow apart.  Or reality sinks in.  Or they just stopped being sick in love or summat.  Either way, Lou graduated and couldn’t find the career he wanted and Harry continued with classes and everything in the background suddenly became the star of the fucking show.”

Liam nods along, picking at the flesh of his bottom lip with anxious teeth.  It’s a diversion to the way his spare hand curls around the nape of Zayn’s neck, rubs an _‘I feel wonderful because I see the love light in your eyes’_ that Zayn recognizes on instinct rather than by sound.

“Sometimes it’s just a moment,” Liam whispers with the corners of his mouth sneaking higher.

Zayn snorts, turns his head away because of the wind and not the affection in Liam’s eyes.  But he pushes his thigh to Liam’s and submerges his skin in Liam’s touches.

“Everything is a fucking moment,” he says crisply, huffing through a few, quick breaths of smoke.

It’s too cold for fireflies and the sky is too dark for falling stars but something incredibly buoyant and _distinct_ , he likes that word, glows around Liam when he glances back at him.  It’s as if he’s calling Zayn on his bullshit with his spritely grin and his cheeks are rounder, a defiant tongue licking at dry lips and Zayn feels caught.

A _diversion_ is what he needs but he’s not casual enough and, absentmindedly, his fingers sneak into the sleeve of Liam’s jacket to escape the cold – and feel the soft texture of his wrist and search for the ink and to brush over the quiet hair on his forearm.

He’s careless with the smile he returns, shaking his head at the way Liam’s cheeks automatically tint as his chin drops.

“You’re so easy to read,” he cackles, even as his fingers scratch out _‘but I like that’_ against his veins.

“Shut it, you donut,” Liam replies with laughter in his voice, a strong keen in his lungs.

Zayn thinks, belatedly, the world probably doesn’t understand this boy at all.  They don’t see past the façade and the way he’s so much more than a pair of boxing gloves and sweat and bruises and strong fists that knock the world on its arse.

He’s a little bit beautiful and so very gentle and a stammering boy underneath layers of muscles.

Zayn’s preoccupied by the howling breeze, the way it bites at their skin with little give, and he misses Liam leaning in but the soft brush of lips low on his cheek, a cold nose pressed to skin is incredibly noticeable.

Liam draws back with an uneven smile, a choked laugh, fingers still slow dancing over Zayn’s thigh.  He looks unsure but determined, bright like the sun high over a desert and the smoke flees Zayn’s lungs for something a little thicker, a little dangerous.

He blinks at Liam until an uneasy laugh breaks those pink lips, the sound twisting something awful over Zayn’s mouth.

“I was going to go for a full-on snog but,” Liam grins, swaying to Jack White above their heads, “I’m a gentleman.”

Zayn balks, stubs out his cigarette, and doesn’t hesitate for a second.  He uses his spare hand like a magician’s wand and bumps their knees together as he shifts over the bench and he’s crowding into Liam’s space before they share a breath.

“I’m not,” he whispers with an edge, with a lethal tongue, right against Liam’s lips and he waits until Liam looks up through those thick eyelashes before he presses their mouths together, fingers curling into that thick hair at the back of Liam’s head.

There’s something sugary on Liam’s tongue from the leftover cake, something warm behind his palm when it presses to Zayn’s shoulder, something hypnotic in his moan when Zayn presses a little harder.  He thinks of music Harry’s played for him, a concert at an overstuffed venue where they were shoved against the barricade and _‘the type of kisses where teeth collide’_ echoes in his head when he bites gently at Liam’s swollen bottom lip.

Fingers push into his hair and, usually, he hates that, but Liam’s careful with it – and a bit rough when Zayn sucks lewdly at his tongue – until Zayn whines into his mouth.  He knows Liam can taste the nicotine and Liam’s kisses are a little sour from the wine but they shove a little harder until they find a routine they can synchronize to.  He angles his chin while Liam’s laugh buzzes over his lips and it’s awkward, clumsy because they don’t know how this goes just yet –

And they don’t know what the other likes for breakfast in the morning or if they’ll share the duvet or if Liam likes it bare with far too much lube or if he’ll be against licking Zayn open under the moonlight but all of those thoughts require a _future_ and Zayn has always been avidly in favor of daydreaming in the current instead.

There’s a teasing laugh that doesn’t come from Liam’s lips and Zayn sighs when Liam jerks back, scrunches his nose at Louis and Gemma hanging out of the emergency exit door with stupid grins.

“Loads of stamina, I hear,” Louis teases.

Gemma snickers into his shoulder, adds, “Imagine how easy it’ll be for him to lift you up and shag you into the wall.”

Zayn does.  He thinks about those bruised, swollen lips around his cock and those scarred knuckles skimming down his spine while Zayn rides him and a cascade of bite marks down his shoulder under a waterfall shower in some posh hotel suite.

His cock aches behind the denim and he presses a groan into the leather when Liam curls an arm around his back, softens the noise of his breathing when Liam whispers _‘I took up yoga a few months back so I’m very well taught in proper breathing techniques and I have patience, babe, believe me’_ and –

No, this world doesn’t understand this boy at all.

 

|+|

 

“I think I give pretty amazing head,” Niall says casually in the dark with neon blues from the television streaking his face.

They’re in the middle of beers and _Iron Man 3_ with Niall’s head in Zayn’s lap, stripped except a pair of Bart Simpson boxers, and Zayn keeps feeding him handfuls of popcorn between scenes.

Zayn cocks an eyebrow at him that Niall returns a little less enthusiastically and their joined laughter echoes off the walls.  He stirs fingers into Niall’s fucked out hair instead of replying and humors Niall with wide eyes, his bottom lip caught under his teeth.

“S’true,” Niall hums, digging his toes into the frayed fabric of the couch.  “I think I was born without a gag reflex or summat.  I don’t get many complaints.  Maybe a little too much spit or I’m a bit sloppy but I think they call that _technique_.”

Zayn chokes on a giggle, flicks Niall’s forehead.  He leans in to whisper, “And whom have you been practicing on you little shit?”

“No one recently,” Niall replies with a small shrug, turning bright blue eyes back to the telly.  “I was seeing this one bird who liked me to use a toy on her.  She had me, well, _‘prepare’_ it for her with my mouth.  Wasn’t very big but I managed to – “

Zayn shoves spare kernels into Niall’s mouth to silence the rest, cheeks burning and nose scrunched.

“You’re horrible.”

Niall licks away the salt, catches Zayn’s fingers on their retreat and grins up at him.

“I just like to satisfy people,” he declares before taking a long swallow of beer.

Zayn sips at his own, meanders in the silence for a moment because Niall is overwhelming and shameless and, at times, amazingly disturbing.

They press into their touches – Niall’s fingers greasy and damp over the back of Zayn’s wrist and Zayn’s in Niall’s hair and shoulder blades nudging against a thigh – and smile each other in the dark at all of Ben Kingsley’s scenes until Niall sighs softly, stealing Zayn’s half-finished beer.

“So have you thought about it?”

Zayn pulls a cigarette from a hidden pack between the cushions, lifting his brow like a question to Niall’s inquiry.

Niall grunts, shaking his head.  “The whole dating an Olympian thing?”

Zayn swallows, slides the cigarette between his lips that he doesn’t light.  He’s not coordinated enough with his heart thumping this loud and his blood sizzling and his nerves split down the middle.

“Not at all,” he lies and Niall’s laugh calls him on it immediately.

“Your sheets say otherwise and don’t you dare – “

Zayn makes a small noise of displeasure, jabs at Niall’s shoulder playfully.  He flicks the flame but it doesn’t catch and Niall nicks the cigarette for himself, snatching the lighter too.

“I’d be pretty stupid to do so,” Zayn admits with a long breath.

“I don’t think so,” Niall argues, huffing through the first few puffs until his lungs adjust.  He blows the smoke away, a lazy smile on his lips when he turns back to Zayn.  “I think it’d be rather ace.  Dating some sort of important figure – “

“He’s not a politician, Niall, for fuck’s sake,” Zayn interjects.

“ – and I think he’s far from _pretentious_ like those other jerks.”

Zayn cocks an eyebrow up like he’s pleased and Niall flips him off immediately for the word he just learned the proper meaning to last Monday while doing a crossword puzzle.

“We have nothing in common,” he says like an afterthought, teeth catching a bottom lip.

“Figured you’d say that, you twat,” Niall laughs, swatting away the smoke.  He lifts an almost arrogant eyebrow with puckered lips that stir something in Zayn’s chest.  “’s why I did my research.”

Zayn snorts, tipping his chin up defiantly.  “You don’t have time to find a proper job but you have time for research?”

“Who else is going to put together the website for your fan club together?” Niall challenges, licking at dry lips and there’s nothing incredulous about his expression, it’s just –

Zayn thinks of first meeting Niall and their conversations over Irish coffee and shared cigarettes.  He abandoned university a term into studying global studies, something Zayn thinks the kid had zero interest in, but lucked up on this flat after his nan left him a trust fund that he’s been living off of ever since.

“We don’t – “

Niall clears his throat, loudly, before smiling.  “Ye both are complete nerds for comics.”

Zayn rolls his eyes but bites his lip at the notion, narrowing his eyes to subdue the grin.

“You love the same music,” Niall adds, sighing without the pretention or mocking, “You both get a hard-on for _the Avengers_ – “

“Everyone loved _the Avengers_ ,” Zayn protests weakly.

“True,” Niall hums, his grin thickening, “but the lot of us haven’t seen it _nine times_ in theaters.”

Zayn squeaks out an undefinable noise that’s emasculating just by volume and Niall whispers _‘he saw it ten times at the cinema according to some German interview’_ just to unsettle Zayn into a scowl.

Niall smiles, satiated before attaching, “You like the same stupid breakfast cereal in the morning and – “

Zayn groans, tangling shaky fingers deep into a hurricane of blonde.  “Where’d you get all of this?” he asks, a little disturbed and a lot intrigued.

“Twitter and Tumblr,” Niall grins and Zayn tries to hide his mortification in the dark but the television sparks waves of soft Technicolor over his face, his cheekbones, and he scrunches his nose at the way Niall barks out a laugh.

“I think I’m a bit too boring for him,” Zayn says, stealing back his beer and he swallows down the _‘or too fucked up for someone that perfect’_ with the dull taste of bitter beer.

Niall scowls up at him, exhales smoke through his teeth with a tight jaw.  “You’re a fucking idiot, mate.”

There’s not a hint of disgust or malice behind the words and Zayn decides not to argue because of it.  He strings his fingers through the tangles of blonde and focuses on the screen for a minute because it’s easier.

He needs simple.

“Besides,” Niall says in that calm, very frank tone that’s slightly disturbing when coming from him, “imagine how hot the fucking sex is gonna be, man.  Like, you’ll probably gag on his cock or summat.”

Zayn groans shamefully, scratching dull nails over Niall’s scalp until he hisses in response.

“I’m just saying,” he huffs, taking another drag.  “He could probably hold you down.  Been a while since you had someone get rough with ye, right?  Tied you down?  I mean – fuck, he seems like the kind of bloke that’ll throw rose petals on the bed and make sure you could handle it but I’ve heard you getting off before, mate.  I’ve seen the kind of porn you like on the history tab and – “

“Ni,” Zayn mewls and Niall’s cackle leaves him defenseless and slouching on the couch.

Niall’s smirk is wide, stretched pink lips breathing out wavy clouds of smoke.

“You don’t mind a lad who’s a little fast and fucks your throat, right?” he teases, his nose wrinkling with his booming laugh that Zayn knows he’ll remember in a few hours when he’s twisted in his sheets, fucking into his palm with a few fingers sneaking just a little lower –

“Fuck off,” he spits but it’s not believable and Niall shrugs it off without a response.

Niall stubs out the cigarette in their poorly molded ashtray – a leftover project from Niall’s obsession with the film _Ghost_ and pottery classes and some pretty girl named Daisy who left her knickers between the cushions – before blowing out a thick ring of smoke.  He sniffs, reclines back into Zayn’s lap like a lazy lion, absently palming his crotch down before smirking up at Zayn.

“At least think about it, ‘kay?  He seems like a decent bloke,” Niall says with a sugary tone that distracts from the sinful tongue that just stained Zayn’s cheeks an unsightly color.

Zayn looks away but his lips betray him with an _‘I will’_ he knows he can’t quite take back.

“You think you’ll tell him about Venice?  Or Verona?” Niall asks with a scratchy voice.

Zayn feeds him popcorn and delays finishing his beer with his lips wrapped around the neck of the bottle.  He’s thought about it –

Not the sunsets and the beach and the three different sets of cameras all focused on him.

No, the idea of letting Liam get that close.  Of letting him see past the bookshop and the helpless mates and the ink-stained arms with cigarettes between his lips and product-worn hair.

“Or you could tell him about Paris,” Niall suggests with a tiny smile.  “Maybe Milan – “

“There was never a Milan,” Zayn sighs with his eyes straying over the space where their bodies aren’t touching, the gaps in the room where he’s trying to hide the dark parts of himself.

“There could’ve been,” Niall retorts with a gentle voice, a regretful murmur that Zayn catches even if he’s trying to disguise it.

He sucks in a sharp breath and _‘there could’ve been’_ feels like the mantra of the past year and a half –

Because there could’ve been flashes on the Eiffel Tower and there could’ve been long runways in the heart of London and there could’ve been tours across Greece but there aren’t.

 _There won’t be_.

“Maybe,” he says against the ache over his tongue, the monster at the back of his throat that says otherwise.  He pushes his hair back and Niall hums his approval.

They stay quiet, even through the action sequences and the ending Zayn’s still not satisfied with, and Zayn wishes Niall would say anything to clear the white noise of _‘there could’ve been’_ that he keeps drowning in.

 

|+|

 

The corner of the fine arts section is his favorite hideaway in this tiny bookshop.

It’s not really the collection of Picasso studies or the features on foreign landscapes or the photography books that show off the breathtakingly gorgeous view of London from just beyond the Thames.  It’s the minimalist lighting from the front window and the way it’s the warmest spot in the shop with the heating vent overhead and the little soft spots of the carpet that he curls up on with a book balanced on his knees and his glasses pushed up his nose.  He thinks it’s probably the way he can still hear the music without it being distracting and how the world feels so much smaller in this space.

It’s where Liam finds him, half-past three on a Tuesday with the streets a little less crowded and grey clouds somewhere in the distance.

He’s hiding his smile – goofy, languid, _affectionate_ – behind bruised knuckles with a smear of sweat on his forehead and his hair pushed under a silly beanie.  He’s got pink cheeks that Zayn knows aren’t from the sight of him but probably from an afternoon run and baggy joggers and tattoos hidden under a cottony raglan.  His fingers squeeze the plastic of his vitamin water with that nervous twitch in his feet that Zayn is so, so accustom to now.

“Hey you,” he says all breathy and shy like that first time and the muscles in his face are so attuned to the rest of him, squishy eyes and a relaxed jaw and his abdomen shows definition through his shirt.  The hem rides up when he reaches to massage the back of his neck and Zayn admires little hints of skin like foreign delicacies on display.

“What’s the occasion?” Zayn asks instead of a _hello_ and _I’ve been thinking about you, constantly_ because those feel so formal and he and Liam are anything but –

He thinks in non-traditional lines and code words and the dynamic between Batman and Robin pre-Jason Todd.

Liam stammers a little with blush smeared high on his cheeks and Zayn smiles back, swallows a laugh and something unpredictably bright relaxes all of the muscles Liam’s lost control of.

“I have two spare tickets for my next fight next week,” Liam says, still rocking on his heels, “It’s just some amateur sparring bout, nothing major but Harry seemed really interested in going that night we chatted – “

 _That night with fairy lights and ivy crawling the walls and pink lips kissed swollen,_ he remembers –

“ – so I thought maybe he’d like to come up.  It’s in Birmingham.”

Zayn nods along, leaning back into a set of shelves and the cool metal lowers the temperature of his skin enough for him to recognize the flush from Liam staring at him.

“It’s _two_ tickets,” Liam says quickly, pushing at his beanie and bits of caramel strands peek out.  “Reckon he could come up, bring a mate if he wanted to.”

Zayn huffs a small laugh, refocusing his eyes on the book in his lap.  “I’m sure Lou would hate it and – “

There’s a small clamor of disapproval that echoes in this small space and Zayn flicks his eyes up to the utterly embarrassed expression wrinkling Liam’s face.

“I didn’t mean Louis, you donut,” he scoffs, twisting a corner of his lip with his teeth.

Zayn blinks up at him for a second, wrinkling his brow and then –

 _Oh_.

Liam’s eyes drag over his face, the loose collar of his shirt, across the inked Arabic and the hint of crossbones and down the cotton wrapped around his forearms and Zayn’s skin has never felt this _alive_.  And his blood burns with a cool uncertainty because he’s not allowing himself to do this.  Not with this lad, this distraction, this fucking knight in shining –

He swallows and curls a little around himself on the carpet.

“I don’t know if – “

His senses are unprepared for the flickering smile like the burning wick of a candle on Liam’s loose lips.  He’s ill-equipped for Liam’s soft sigh like he _knows_ what Zayn’s doing.  He doesn’t expect Liam to lean down, knees to the carpet with large hands knocking away the book and gripping Zayn’s knees.

Liam crowds in close with a roguish smirk, fingers tightening around the bones, and his eyes are just starting to crinkle when Zayn remembers to inhale again.

“Make it worth your while,” Liam offers like a promise, like a _‘to be continued,’_ like it’s meant to be naughty but Liam’s just not convincing in that role.

 _Not yet_.

Zayn cocks his head back – if just to see the color of Liam’s eyes or the stubble kissing his jawline – and lifts an eyebrow.  He clears his throat, trying to put all of his resilience on display, before whispering, “How so?”

Liam blurts out a smirk that’s stupid and goofy but it works against those soft cheeks and honest eyes.

“Just trust me,” Liam pleads.

 _I don’t_ , Zayn thinks but that’s not true either.

He does and it’s terrifying how loud that sounds in the hollows of his mind.

“Your eyes,” Liam says, a little softer, his voice that hoarse sound like a _morning after_ –

Zayn’s cock fattens at the thought of that – a morning after with still sore muscles and a bruised mouth and warm skin still shiny from finger-shaped streaks of lube.

“ – and your cheekbones,” Liam breathes, eyes flicking all over, “You’re kind of _amazing_.  Like – like one of those blokes in Vogue or those posh Italian magazines.”

Zayn blushes, hard, and the playful distraction in Liam’s voice can’t dull the feeling at the edge of his stomach.  That little reminder of the things he hasn’t said, hasn’t told Liam.  Of a few years ago, when he was still incredibly young and London was insanely large and _‘you’ll make it big with those looks, kid’_ that he heard whispered in his ear far too many times by some agent looking to score a new client.

He swallows, steals his eyes from Liam’s awed expression just to breathe.

“Yeah, okay,” he replies, ducking his head.  “I’ll come along.”

He misses the wide grin on Liam’s lips, the way his eyes probably crinkle at the corners, the stain against his cheeks to focus on the way his fingers flex over Zayn’s knees, the way his thumbs try to stroke through the denim with this certain kind of excitement.  It burns his skin and he wants to cover Liam’s fingers with his own just to feel the way this sensation vibrates off of him.  It clouds his lungs and fills his circulation system with stars and he forgets.

He forgets what he hasn’t said and remembers what he wants to say.

But not yet.

 

|+|

 

 _I’m in love with your honor, I’m in love with your cheeks_ , he thinks a whole hour later when Liam’s in the middle of one of the aisles, thumbing through a used copy of _Divergent_ with mild interest.  The sun catches his wide shoulders and there’s a silhouette of a slim torso with a tucked chin fanning pretty shadows from eyelashes over his cheeks.

It’s only half of the truth because Zayn’s never been quite in love with anyone other than a few mates back home, his family.  Never that heart-stopping, numbing sensation he reads about or has seen in over a dozen films and he doesn’t know Liam well enough to begin to associate that word with those strong muscles and broad hands and hyperactive laugh but –

He’s suddenly a little more than a sentence or a page break or a few lines in a chapter.  He’s more like a plotline and a primary character and the protagonist.

Liam’s a lead while Zayn thinks everything else is becoming so secondary.

 

|+|

 

The arena is only half-full when the cab drops them off –

Harry offered to drive his old, rusted green banger but Louis swore it wouldn’t survive the drive and Zayn’s certain he wouldn’t survive the lack of a proper heating system –

And their tickets are waiting at the booth, along with two laminated backstage passes – and Zayn ignores all of Harry’s protests to sneak into the locker rooms to meet a few of the lightweights, some of the boys in the welterweight division from the last Olympics – and a very distinct white lily that Zayn absolutely refuses to comment on, not even when his cheeks are smudged pink and Harry’s got that smug grin pressed to his cherry lips.  But they smile at the pretty ticket attendant – Jesy, with her big hair, large eyes, and ripped stockings like she’s craving the attention – and Zayn listens to Harry’s teasing laugh as they climb over all of the plastic seats to their own.

“This is quite nice,” Harry says from their view, behind a row of press and wedged between over a dozen different celebrities that Harry discreetly points out but Zayn doesn’t really recognize any of them.

Zayn hums a response, a bucket of popcorn shoved between their hips while they share beers under the low lighting of the arena.  He swallows the cheap sour taste with a foot kicked up on an empty seat in front of him while Harry sneaks photos of a few MMA fighters in attendance, a varied selection of television actors getting buzzed on something stronger and prima donna models in shimmering dresses.

There’s a hundred different flash bulbs from the photographers lighting fluorescent Technicolor behind his eyelids.  The crowd is far from timid, a funnel of sharp noises while watching some amateur pre-show match that he barely gives any effort toward, thumbing through a game of Angry Birds on his phone while Harry keeps shifting around next to him.

“He must really fancy you,” Harry adds, a little softer with some awful grin Zayn will never forget, “Our seating is quite fantastic.”

Zayn shrugs like he doesn’t care but he won’t admit his heart races a little heavier, his lungs expand for the dopamine, his skin sizzles just at the thought.

There’s a racket of rock music in between rounds that distracts Zayn just enough – even if Harry’s heavy boot keeps time with the Neon Trees echoing through all of the hollow spots of the arena, completely out of synch with Zayn’s heart – and he doesn’t shift his eyes over his phone for the little messages Liam keeps sending him from the backstage –

_are you herrreee?? ;)_

_did you like the flower??? I am no romeo butt you remind me of poetry_

_would you consider… nevermind :P_

_think I was nerrvous till now… u must be a good luck charrrrm aha x_

And all of the stupid emoji’s attached are a complete diversion to all of the things Zayn’s secretly hoping Liam’s saying in between all of those silly lines.

He tosses a casual arm around Harry’s shoulders, slouches further into the rough plastic seating and sips at his beer before asking, “How’s domestic life these days?”

It’s a complete interruption from the words too heavy for his tongue – like _you really think he likes me_ and _I think I could waste away forever with that idiot if I didn’t know any better_ or _is it too early to admit he makes me feel like a beginning rather than a tragic end_ – and he plays a small smile on his lips the moment Nirvana seeps through the walls because Harry is, if anything, an absolute wreck for Kurt Cobain’s melancholy tone.

Harry grins, snaps off a quick selfie before swiping long fingers through his hair.  He’s wearing an unnecessary fedora and a halfway-buttoned shirt with a hazardous pattern-print.  His skintight jeans hug at his thighs while his fingers tap out the melody.

“I found a really lovely home just off Cheshire that’s not too far from home,” Harry says, leaning back into Zayn’s touch with a _‘what else should I be all apologies’_ flicking off his tongue.  “It’s got a yellow-trimmed fence and a massive backyard for a dog.  Plenty of space and two spare bedrooms.”

“One for me?” Zayn teases and Harry lights up like he’s read his mind.

There’s a tinted frown on his lips that vibrates through the tension in his shoulders when, even quieter, Harry adds, “Lou isn’t too keen on it, though.  Says it’s too far.  Says he wants a little more space, room for a nursery and – “

Zayn catches the hitch, sees it before the sound parts Harry’s lips and those green eyes haven’t looked so dim before.

“He’ll come around,” Zayn asserts, even if he’s not sure he believes himself.

Harry nods like an afterthought, downs half of his beer in a swallow.  He hiccups out a laugh, wipes the excess from his mouth with the back of his wrist and Zayn can’t quite forget the _‘if you’re a ship, I’m your compass’_ Louis giggled near-Spring last year while in the leather chair with a needle buzzing against his skin.

“I’m not sure he ever wants to leave London,” Harry sighs, tangling fingers in those curls again.

Zayn lifts his brow while sipping at his beer.  He rubs gentle fingers into Harry’s muscles with a patient voice assuring, “S’not like that.  It’s probably the whole wanting something in his field bullshit of a post-grad and – “

Harry shoves a discontent noise into the space beneath Zayn’s jaw, shaking his head.  “Christ, Zayn, he’s not some bloke with a medical degree filling prescriptions at a drug store.  He’s a theater guy and the West End is impossible to crack.”

Zayn echoes a sentiment into the sea of soft curls that smell like Louis’ cologne and lavender shampoo.

“He loves you,” Zayn mumbles because it’s an automatic response.  And it’s true.

“He loves my blowjobs,” Harry teases back, smiling against Zayn’s skin.  “He loves the way I ride him.”

Zayn groans and pinches at Harry’s skin until his laughter is the backbeat to some David Bowie tune he hasn’t heard in years.

“The essence of your relationship is nothing but poorly written sex,” Zayn grins when Harry pulls back.

Harry wriggles his eyebrows and they salute each other with plastic cups of beer, their laughter ebbed in the introductions of Liam’s opponent.

“Ever since he brought me over to the dark side,” Harry sighs happily and the dusty lights overheard will never burn as ominous as that smirk or those ultraviolet green eyes.

Zayn distorts the sound of his heart in his ears when that one Drake song he’s always loved pounds through the cheap speakers and a sole spotlight flicks on a nearby aisle.  He bites into his lip, thrusts himself halfway into Harry’s lap for protection from that buzz under his skin and whispers a _‘oh babe, you were corrupt long before him but_ sixteen _is a wonderful memory for you innit?’_ that gets lost on the announcer and the electricity of the crowd when _‘Olympic gold medalist and Wolverhampton giant, the Payno’_ echoes off all the acoustics.

“Just like this will be your best memory for years to come,” Harry swears right back with a stupid smirk and his fingers digging into Zayn’s hips to slow his breathing.  “And don’t you dare lie when I ask you about it five years from now.”

Zayn winces, pulls a face while crawling back into his own seat and playing aloof has never been his strongest façade –

Not when Liam drops the hood of his robe to flash the crowd a large smile or the way his muscles flex, twist under his skin when he shrugs out of his clothes or the way he shoots his opponent a quick, friendly nod in a pair of black and yellow shorts – _Batman_ , Zayn thinks and his heart must be Gotham because it’s found its hero – and enough energy in his movements to start a wildfire in the pit of Zayn’s stomach.

The bell rings and he’s lost.

He can’t quite escape the pulse of everyone around him or this static feeling in his veins and he chews nervously on his bottom lip whenever the other guy lands a blow against Liam –

Even if Liam deflects each of the thrown punches and comes up with a smile each time and hits just as hard like he’s got something to prove.

Harry’s on his feet cheering and calling out the referee every chance he gets for breaking them up and he should be breathless but Zayn’s the one struggling to circulate oxygen through his lungs.  And long fingers tease through his hair to distract him, Harry offering him one of those knowing grins in the dark like he understands because –

Sixteen year old Harry was obsessed with a foul-mouthed Louis Tomlinson for so long that Zayn barely remembers seventeen year old Harry falling in love and eighteen year old Styles wearing Louis’ letterman jacket, even though it fit poorly, across the university lawn with a big smile and his heart stitched neatly to one of the leather sleeves.

It’s not until the fourth round, through the ropes with Liam in his corner being toweled down and spitting water out, that Zayn reconciles his organs into function and the haze parts just enough for him to breathe.  They’re six beers in – two for Zayn, almost four for Harry – and the crowd is still so _alive_ , alive and breathless after that last right hook Liam took to his jaw and –

He thinks in dreams, really.  It’s foggy clouds and wavy colors and distorted perception when Liam looks around the crowd for something – no, not a _something_ but a _him_.  A _Zayn_.  And their eyes don’t quite connect but Zayn rises a little off his seat and Liam grins just a tiny bit longer before shoving his hands back into his gloves and dancing back to the center of the ring.

Liam’s a little swifter this time, a little more determined, a shark in an overpopulated ocean.  His punches connect, he dances around poorly thrown retaliation and shrugs off the ones that actually smack flesh.  His damp hair falls in his eyes for a second, the chevrons on his forearm stretching under the propulsion of muscles.

Zayn’s breath catches and his helpless smile refuses to diminish.  No, he _beams_ when the other guy falls to one knee and his heart skips – _pathetic_ – at the way Liam backs away with a modest grin.

The harsh stage lights play like illusions over the glistening muscles, the veins twisted around his biceps.  Zayn focuses on the way his chest is a little cleaner shaven but his jaw is still stubble-ridden.  His skin is already a little bruised but his full pink lip stretches for a wide grin and the other guy never recovers –

And Zayn doesn’t either.  Not after the bell, not after the congratulatory announcement, not after Liam leans over the ropes and salutes the crowd and does that stupid half-wink right in his direction that he nearly misses because of the glare of the cameras but Harry nudges him playfully and Zayn loses his breath just that quickly.

 

|+|

 

They’re ushered backstage by two, bulky security guards who eye him a little wearily before Harry stirs them into friendly chats that distract from the scowl on Zayn’s face.  They skip the locker rooms that are stained in a sweaty scent for a small dressing room in the corner.

There’s something like warm bonfire smoke, coastal sands, fresh mint herbal tea that soaks the air and stirs in his chest until he can feel all of his enzymes coated in the excitement of the room.

The television in one corner is on a roar, a replay of the entire fight with a few guys standing around it and cheering on like it’s all still live instead of a loop.  Harry steals a bottled water from the stash on the vanity and there’s a girl perched in Liam’s lap with wild, curly hair, a long stretch of bare legs and heels, creamy honey skin and Liam’s big hands on her waist while he laughs into her shoulder.  Zayn feels something uncomfortably heavy in his chest that replaces that earlier feel and it stings like jealousy, acidic like envy until he sneaks Harry’s water from between long fingers to wash it all down his throat.

“Harry!” Liam exclaims with those crinkled up eyes, cheeks pressed a cottony pink and a wide, wide smile.

Harry shoves his curls out of his eyes, tips his fedora toward Liam before grinning, “Payno.  You were simply killer out there, man.  Bloody amazing.”

Liam blushes and chews his bottom lip with a small nod like a _‘thank you’_ that they both know his lips can’t quite repeat.

His eyes sparkle – at least, Zayn wants to believe they do but it’s probably just a trick of the light – when he looks at Zayn shoved into an opposite corner and there’s something like _‘come closer’_ and _‘I looked for you the whole time’_ pushing at his lips, his brighter smile but Zayn chases the heat over his skin with another swallow of water.

The girl – who’s insanely gorgeous and smooth and _fuck_ – tosses her hair back and Zayn gets a better view of her hypnotic eyes and pert smile.  He recognizes her immediately from online videos and stock photos and tabloid footage of her and Liam together.  She’s a girlfriend, the one he’s seen with the most, and she’s careful with her smile towards him.

“I swear I know this one, Li,” she coos, shifting in his lap and curling an arm around Liam’s neck – _no_ – with fingers in his sweaty hair.

Liam smirks into her shoulder, hiding his cheeks behind her hair.  “Zayn is far too _mysterious_ to not remember,” he says and Zayn winces, wants to tell Liam how much he hates that word and the combination of _bad boy_ and the tireless _exotic_ that followed him all through A-levels.

Instead, he chews his thumbnail and offers them a put on smile that he swears Liam frowns at.

“He is quite fit,” Danielle teases, glossy lips pressing a kiss to Liam’s shiny temple while her fingers disappear into the low-slung collar of his shirt and Zayn’s fingers twitch –

And his heart collides, accidentally, with his ribs and his blood turns freezing at the way Liam doesn’t shove her away.

“You’re Danielle,” Harry says in a slow, dragging voice like he’s just woke up and, somewhere, Zayn finds it amusing because _he just did_.

Danielle grins, flicks her hair back and curves her shoulder.  “Am I noticeable?”

“You’re beautiful,” Harry laughs before Zayn can utter _‘yes’_ and _‘now please leave, he is_ mine _now’_ but that’s so possessive and completely out of character and –

He doesn’t think past that.

Danielle giggles, shaping the crown of Liam’s head with her hand, sighing when he pulls back.

“Ex-girlfriends of Olympic medalist don’t seem quite as important,” she says, almost dreamily, with eyes straying over Zayn, “as their _accomplishments_.  Or their next goal.”

Zayn flushes at the hint behind her tongue and her eyes and the way Liam shamefully blushes, ducks his head.

“You’re a bit famous, too,” Harry announces, opening a chilled Gatorade and sneaking a few candies from a bowl near a basket of fresh fruits.

Danielle rolls her eyes with a playful laugh and a shameless pride in her smile.  “I’m a dancer,” she explains, flexing her sinewy calves and shiny legs and strong thighs, “and a bit of an actress.”

 _And a gorgeous face, a triple-threat unlike me_ , Zayn thinks but he rejects letting the words pass his lips and bites at them when they wade on his tongue.  He smiles as an alternative and his heart starts up again at that dumb, goofy grin Liam shoots him from over her shoulder.

“He’s very photogenic,” Danielle declares as an interruption and Liam agrees silently before she adds, “And he looks tough.  Things I’ll never be.”

Zayn doesn’t question what her words mean or the way her fingers linger against Liam’s scalp when he mewls at whatever she whispers in his ear.  He pats her bum instead and she cackles unabashedly as she crawls out of his lap.  Her hips are a thing of wonder as she saunters away and closer to Harry, pouring a glass of wine and burying her fingers beneath Harry’s fedora to brush over his curls.

Harry’s laugh plays as an overture to Zayn’s heart when he finally looks away from her – and her skin and her eyes and the way he knows Liam’s heart must still be imprinted to the palm of her hand – and his breathing retreats a little when Liam grins at him across the room.  They ignore all of the noise from the others and the cheering and the _‘Liam Payne takes down another one’_ the local newscaster says across the television, speaking with their eyes because their throats are too dry.

Zayn wants to ask is she a _past_ or a _possible future_ but doesn’t.  He thinks Liam knows because he makes a soft hurt noise that coats Zayn’s heart with foreign texture and he smiles at Liam to calm those nervous hands reaching for the nape of his neck.

Liam smirks back, scratching through his hair instead and it’s only then that Zayn notices the bruises and discolored skin from the fight and his lips go dry with this need to kiss away all of the tension in those muscles.

 

|+|

 

An hour later, when Harry’s still engrossed in Danielle and the room gets a little thicker with personnel and security, Liam sneaks Zayn into an empty hallway and presses him gently to a wall with their foreheads touching.

They don’t speak about the obvious, but they whisper about the new Captain America film they both want to see and they quote Bane’s lines from _the Dark Knight Rises_ with their lips brushing.  Liam’s hands hold his hips like he can’t bear to let go and Zayn threads his fingers in the thick hair at the back of Liam’s head – where he swears Danielle hasn’t touched – and thinks _all mine_ for three whole seconds.

Liam kisses his cheek and softens a giggle close to Zayn’s lips before whispering, “I’m a gentleman, remember?”

Zayn groans quietly but then a thumb teases the corner of his mouth and a palm outlines the shape of his cock in his trousers and Liam leans in close with a _‘but you’re not and I want to see what that means’_ that hitches Zayn’s breath.

Liam kisses him, calm before the thunder, and Zayn bites back with a laugh and the shaky light overhead flickers in time with the way Zayn’s heart expands because –

Because all of this is too much.

 _No_.

Because Liam’s mouth coaxes a _‘whenever you’re ready babe’_ from his lips that he swears he’ll regret years from now.

 

|+|

 

He restrains himself from being a teenage boy on the verge of hormones for a week by huffing through cigarettes, crowding into Niall’s twin bed for reruns of _House_ and studying Greek mythology because, despite what his old teachers used to tell him, there is nothing fondly romantic about death and carnage and the tale of Odysseus in _the Odyssey_.

He helps Harry set a candlelit dinner for Louis in their loft to seduce him into the idea of _suburban habitation_ – a term deemed necessary by Harry – and steals the couch with his headphones while they shag – _loudly_ – their way through an _‘I’ll think about it Haz but have you considered setting a date for the wedding?’_ that leaves them restless and quiet the rest of the night.  It’s a little sad, if he thinks about it, the way he can hear Louis turning in his sleep even if their bedroom is forty meters away and Harry’s sighs are just a little louder than the Kanye West in his ears.

 _Happily ever after_ _is a tornado in the middle of London traffic_ , he thinks with a scowl and he refuses to scroll through his phone for stupid pictures of Liam’s dumb smile pasted all over Google.

Harry finds him curled around his laptop with the spare duvet shoved down to his feet in the morning.  His cheeks are pink when Harry peeks over him to read, above a whisper, the headline _‘Liam Payne ends relationship with dancer-girlfriend to pursue training’_ and Zayn feels humiliated but Harry merely smiles sweetly and makes him fresh coffee to calm his nerves.

“If it’s any consolation,” Harry starts and Zayn groans immediately because any sentence that begins with that tastes like _death_ afterwards.

Harry smirks and lets Zayn press his messy hair into his lap before finishing, “I think he quite fancies you a lot.  It’s very obvious.”

“S’not,” Zayn hisses with a grimace and he clicks off the article for emphasis.

The high ceilings and open spaces of the loft catch Harry’s laugh and warm fingers press into his hair like a comfort.

“He does,” Harry insists, slurping his own heady tea with too much honey, “but you’re an idiot who’s never had a feeling for anyone, so you wouldn’t know.”

“I have,” Zayn argues weakly.

Harry glares at him with a flexed eyebrow and Zayn coils into something smaller on the couch.

“When we met, you were single,” Harry reminds him, nudging a thumb over that sweet, sensitive spot just above his hairline.  He clears his throat – even if he still sounds sleepy and like he’s swallowed a large cock – before adding, “And last Christmas, you weren’t dating anyone.  You’ve shagged all of three girls and four lads in the past five years – “

“How would you know?”

Again, Harry scowls and pinches the skin at the nape of his neck.  “You’re quite chatty when you’re pissed off Jack Daniels, mate,” he sneers with an alarming wink, “You tell Lou everything.”

Zayn buries his head in Harry’s lap, mutes his groan with tight lips.

“Regardless,” Harry says in that regal tone like he understands big words and subtle terminology, “I reckon the bloke is very into you.”

“How can you tell?” Zayn asks around a swallow of hot coffee that awakens his senses.

Harry grins and produces his phone like a fucking illusionist, thumbing through a few apps before pulling up Twitter and Zayn’s breath hitches before Harry can even speak.

He queues up a cheap photo of him and Liam backstage with Liam’s arm curled around Zayn and he smothers a yelp at the awed look in his own eyes in the picture.  He ignores the caption – _@Real_Liam_Payne: good times with this guy after my win!!_ – and scoffs at Harry’s teasing giggle in his ear.

“And this one,” Harry breathes warmly, draining his tea and scrolling through his feed.

Something tumbles hot, fast, furious into his chest when Harry stops on Liam’s page and the _‘fuck’_ on his lips doesn’t take flight.

“Saw this last night and I figured you were too daft to check yourself,” Harry admits, clicking on the message and turning his phone sideways to offer an amplified version for viewing.

Zayn swallows – or tries to – and hides his shaking hands between the cushions and the helpless little grin that twitches over his lips feels oddly welcoming.

_@Real_Liam_Payne: Me thinksss @zaynmalik is a lott like iron man! is that weirrrd?? Maybe well watch the avengers over pizza?? ace lad! aha :)_

 

|+|

 

Liam’s practice gym isn’t in the soul of London like Zayn expects.  No, it’s somewhere just around the corner from the village, by an overpopulated park and across from a thrift shop and so far from Knightsbridge that Zayn can’t even taste the flood of the Thames on his tongue like he imagines.  It’s so inconspicuous that Zayn forgets, admittedly, that this building is the foundation that trained an Olympic gold medalist –

And it’s so _Liam_ with its brick walls outside and faded paint on the sign and plain structure that Zayn wants to know if there’s anything buried under the layers like he knows there is inside of Liam.

But he doesn’t know all of those secrets.

Not quite yet.

Liam meets him on the corner and tugs him into an oversized hoodie that swallows all of Zayn’s limbs and hips and smells wonderfully like Liam because it’s a chilly March morning and Zayn’s nearly shivering from the walk.  He greets Zayn with a steaming coffee – because Zayn hates mornings and it’s a little past dawn and Zayn’s never up before the sun – and a kiss on the cheek that’s far from academic.  It’s gentle and his lips skim the corner of Zayn’s mouth when their noses brush and Zayn has to pull back to view the entire expanse of Liam’s broad grin.

He lets Liam lean back in for a brief moment and Liam’s eyes crinkle and his dry lips scratch just under his jaw when he whispers a slow, deep _‘good morning’_ that Zayn clings onto for thirty seconds too long.

They don’t speak, not yet, but Liam tangles their fingers together when no one’s looking and drags him into the large building like he’s hiding Zayn from the rest of the world –

Or keeping him for himself but this thing between them is still casual and Zayn’s never thought of himself as some coveted prize before.

Liam drags his eyes down Zayn’s jaw – stained with morning scruff – and smiles at the way Zayn’s knuckles are drowning in the jumper until Zayn has to distract himself by tugging away and looking over the lobby, the long walkway to the main gym.

“Why here?” Zayn asks, glancing around while blowing the steam off his coffee.

It’s an old, dusty gym with peeling white paint on the brick walls and low lighting and worn down equipment.  The heavy bags hang from rusted chains and the mats are still stiff but faded.  The speed bags look fairly new, a row of gloves on a rack near a wall.  There’s uncovered light bulbs swinging from the high, high ceiling that provide a soft glow.  There’s three rings all opposing each other with gradual wear and loose ropes but the canvas looks sturdy.  The vintage posters of boxers Zayn can’t name on the walls draws his attention and the sunlight that pours in from the dirty windows kicks the dust into the air like swirls of glitter.

From the corner of his eye, Liam comes into view and he’s slipped out of his joggers into a pair of loose shorts, old trainers, and a shapeless tank.  All of the muscles in his forearm strain when he wraps his fists in practice tape, tugs on a pair of gloves.

He offers Zayn a nervous smile, teeth twisting the shape of his lip and Zayn just wants to kiss him breathless.

“Because it reminds him of home.”

The voice comes from their left and Zayn strains around Liam to watch a tall boy with shabby stubble, greasy hair, and a mischievous smile perched on his lips approaching.  There’s a shorter boy beside him with sunlight on his grin, a snapback hiding his hair, and nicely toned arms folded over his Iron Man shirt.

Liam blushes, thumps his gloves together shyly before turning.

“These are my best mates Andy and Josh,” he says with a stammer, jerking his head toward them.  “Lads, this is – “

“ _Zayn Malik_ ,” Andy says quickly, widening his smirk and stretching out a large hand that swallows Zayn’s.  “Cheers, mate, you’re the talk of this one all of the time.”

Liam groans and playfully punches Andy’s broad shoulder, ducking a poorly timed uppercut from Andy.  He laughs, dances away with a shimmy, a snicker of glee that soaks Zayn’s blood in warmth and he has to take liberal sips of his coffee to disguise his own grin.

“Do you box?” Zayn asks around the lump in his throat and he wants to jab at Liam when he spots the sweet, knowing smile on his lips like _‘caught you.’_

Andy’s laugh echoes in the hollowed out gym and Josh shoves him away to slow the blood burning Zayn’s cheeks.

“I’m a studio drummer,” Josh replies with a shaking head, “And Andy here is – “

“Liam’s personal confidant and part-time bodyguard and financial consultant when he’s pissed off his arse and – “

Liam grins, knocking their hips together before interjecting, “He’s a slacker is what he is.  A complete twat and travel companion.”

“That’s the short version,” Andy huffs, dragging fingers into Liam’s hair until its mussed and standing up in all of the wrong directions.

“You’d be a complete disaster without me,” he adds when Liam tugs away, throwing fake punches like children on the playground and Zayn shrinks into the hoodie and hides his grin in the shadows of the collar.

“Maybe,” Liam shrugs, stealing Josh’s snapback before nudging up to Zayn, pressing their hips and shoulders together, grinning like a maniac.  “But this one is doing a pretty fine job of keeping me grounded.”

Zayn blinks at him with large eyes and almost spills his coffee trying to recoil his heavy breathing.

Liam’s a little bolder with his grin, the scrunch of his nose, the way his cheeks only tint halfway.

“Gross, dude.  Your hard-on is showing,” Josh scolds with a giggle while Andy runs his eyes over Zayn like he’s sizing him up.  Like he’s testing Zayn’s resilience.

Zayn flexes his jaw and presses closer to Liam, a defiant tip of his chin that drags a smirk over Andy’s mouth.

“Dani was right – he is gorgeous,” Andy says, tucking an arm around Josh’s shoulders and shooting Zayn a hearty grin that relaxes the tension he’s been hiding beneath his bones.

Liam soothes a smile to Zayn’s shoulder, curling an arm around his waist, and Zayn swears his skin will remain numb hours later from the pressure and Liam’s soft breathing sinking into the collar of his hoodie.

 

|+|

 

Zayn can name at least a hundred different things Harry Styles has been wrong about in his lifetime, but he’s right about Liam – he _is_ breathtaking inside of the ring.

He watches from a dizzying view on the mat, sat with his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles.  Andy’s standing over him, grinning and sipping at sour Powerade flavors, coaching Liam along even though the other boy moves to his own rhythm.  The gym is a little more crowded with some older boxers training on the speed bags and occupying the rings opposite Liam’s but Zayn barely notices any of them as Liam sprints around the ring, trading off partner after partner and shadowboxing himself during the in-between.

Instead of the stammering, fumbling boy from the bookshop, he’s like gossamer on his toes and his muscles move fluid-like.  His skin glistens under angry sunlight, all of the tendons and veins exposed as he jabs at nothing and uppercuts a few of the guys challenging him out of the way.  He takes a few hits for the amusement, grinning around his mouthguard before tossing a few punches like a bullet curving toward its target.

Zayn chews his lip, watches the sweat glisten over his skin and soak his tank as he dances around a few opponents and holds the ropes open for a few of the younger kids who all scream _‘Payno’_ and stumble on about their dreams of being just like him.

He grins when Liam’s mouth spreads wide and watches him ruffle a few of their heads with taped fingers.

“Stay in school,” Liam warns each of them before teaching them how to plant their feet and says _‘always remember boxing is about protecting yourself, not trying to hurt the other bloke’_ with a soft patience that echoes a little too broadly down Zayn’s chest.

“He’s getting better,” Josh half-whispers as Liam pummels the speed bag, thumps the heavy bag with unprotected fists until his knuckles come back a sharp pink with the skin almost broken.

Andy nods along to the Snow Patrol echoing in the background, the music getting lost in the high beams of the ceiling.  He nudges a foot to Zayn’s hip because _staring, it’s what you’re doing right now_ until his laugh drowns out the words and Zayn looks quickly at his feet instead.

“Stronger,” Andy adds, squaring his shoulder and winking at Liam and he’s nothing but a goofy kid when he looks back with a dumb grin and pink cheeks from the exertion this time.

“You lot are nothing but trouble,” Liam giggles, pushing back sweaty fringe and leaning into the heavy bag until it threatens to collapse him.

“And you love us,” Andy shouts back while Josh feeds him water from a cold bottle.

Liam smirks, sneaks a few fingers under Josh’s singlet to press to his skin before he mumbles, “My very own Tim Drake and Jimmy Olsen.”

“Hey, I resent that,” Josh laughs, tucking his head under Liam’s strong jaw.

Andy sputters a noise and shoves his foot harder into Zayn’s waist until he leans back to look up for the _‘and you must be Lois Lane’_ he whispers with a smug smile that Zayn grimaces at.

He flicks his eyes back to Liam, something sharp constricting around his throat when Liam shamelessly stares at him with half-lidded eyes, a sweet slope to his smile, and calloused fingers stroking his half-empty water bottle like a –

Zayn groans silently, looks down and pretends that little twitch in his jeans is his heart dropping to his feet rather than his cock coming alive.

 

|+|

 

“So,” Andy starts with a superior grin while tossing Zayn a pair of gloves, “think you can take him?”

Zayn shrugs with a careless expression, swims out of Liam’s oversized hoodie before tightening the laces around his wrists.  Liam’s warming up through a few more practice rounds with Josh in the ring, just a playful thump of fists that vibrates around the gym – leather smacking against flesh.

“I used to box in ninth year,” Zayn says a little nonchalantly, rotating his shoulders to loosen the muscles but there’s still something tight around his spine and that coil in his chest won’t let up.

Andy shuffles a laugh across his lips, nodding.  “Were you any good?”

“Took down a few guys,” Zayn replies under his breath, eyeing Andy.  “Nothing to really go on about.  But I was into it.”

A sigh passes Andy’s mouth but there’s something buried under the layers – _he’s impressed_.

“Try not to slaughter him,” Josh teases while holding open the ropes with a foot.  He winks at Zayn, thumping his shoulder playfully with a whispered _‘good luck even though you don’t need it’_ while scurrying out of the ring and tossing a _‘don’t break him – he has another fight in two weeks’_ over his shoulder as he sidles up to Andy.

“Be careful of his right side,” Andy suggests but his grin is telling and Liam scowls at him.  “I think that’s his bad side.”

“Fucking tosser,” Liam mumbles around the guard and something twitches at the corner of his mouth when Zayn gets close.

Zayn arches an eyebrow, tightens the muscles of his lips not to smile back but his body goes pliant for the way Liam leans a little closer to tighten the straps on his headgear.  He makes a face at the way it messes his bedhead quiff – _‘it’s for_ protection _and he can buy you enough product to reconstruct the Leaning Tower of Zayn later’_ Josh warned from a corner of the room – and he wants to deny the shiver that sparks like static down his spine when Liam brushes a soft thumb to the corner of his mouth before slipping in the rubbery mouthguard.

“Nothing below the belt,” Liam pleads with a silly grin, dragging cautious fingers down Zayn’s bare sides, “I’d like to show you a few other _techniques_ I’ve learned.”

Zayn gasps and the diversion works when he almost misses the swift jab Liam tosses at his shoulder.  It’s a dirty tactic and he rushes Liam to counter the way his cock throbs in his jeans.

They dance around each other, Zayn with narrowed eyes and Liam with a teasing smile, and throw punches that refuse to connect.

“Balance your weight a little more on your weaker foot,” Liam suggests, blocking a few of Zayn’s short jabs.  He grins behind his gloves, nodding when Zayn follows his instructions.  “You’re better at close range.”

Zayn thumps his fist a little harder to drown out his helpless sighs and stumbles away when Liam retaliates.

He can tell Liam is being lazy with his movements, refusing to put in his full effort and it’s disarming and alarming and incredibly _annoying_ because he smiles through all of Zayn’s attacks and laughs when Zayn pulls back breathlessly like they’ve just started.

“C’mere,” Liam croons, weaving around all of Zayn’s long distance throws, “You’re not aiming.”

“M’not trying,” Zayn huffs but he is.  He’s gauging the distance and calculating the symmetry – even though he’s always hated math and sucked at equations – and trying to target the rippling muscles Liam keeps exposing as he ducks.

“Too much energy,” Liam warns with a softer smile.  “You’ll tire yourself out.”

“Fuck off,” Zayn coughs out, still sprinting punches at Liam’s forearms.

“And the smoking doesn’t help,” Liam adds with a smirk, crowding in close until Zayn almost suffocates on his scent and his heat and his slick skin slipping off of Zayn’s and –

Liam bobs out of an assault and teasingly uppercuts him into a corner.

Zayn’s breathing feels irregular – like he’s underwater, like he’s been shot – and Liam pins him in with hands on the ropes and his chest pressed to Zayn’s.  He feels surrounded, engulfed in Liam and he thinks he’ll never run away from this.

Liam smirks, does a goofy body roll that hitches their hips together before he leans in.  Zayn distracts himself with the play of muscles in his forearms, the way everything twists and strains like bow strings before chapped lips scratch over the shell of his ear.

“You don’t have to be rough with me,” Liam breathes and Zayn can taste his smile, he swears he can.  “You can be gentle because you’re already such a diversion.  You think you have to be strong but, really, strength is in the disguise, babe.  So stop trying.”

Zayn breathes in his heady scent – all musk and young boy and something aromatic and _Liam_ – before shoving him back.  He shoots Liam an amused grin to contrast with the befuddled one on Liam’s lips before peeling off his gloves.

“Think he wins by default, Payno,” Josh chokes out against the racketing laugh in his chest.

“It was no contest,” Andy agrees with an arm still stitched around Josh’s wide shoulders, nodding at Zayn.  “Li was sporting a semi when the kid first got in the ring.  We both know he can’t get his head in the game when his _other head_ is peeking out his shorts.”

Liam groans, falling into a corner of the ring with a hand over his cock but Zayn can still see the outline through the nylon of his shorts and he hides his grin in the thick material of the hoodie when he slides it back on.

 

|+|

 

It’s almost midnight and the sky is an remarkable dark purple, even with a galaxy of stars high above London’s atmosphere, that keeps distracting him as they walk.  Liam’s got careful, gentle fingers low on his back and they keep slipping into the dip in this unconscious motion that splits Zayn in half.  It’s cool, even for March, but their breath is barely visible and he tells himself he’s only stumbling closer to Liam because of the uneven sidewalk beneath their feet –

Not because he loves that smile on Liam’s lips or the way their hips brush or, quite possibly, because he wants Liam to feel like a hero under these bright street lamps.

They chat in circles about their favorite comic book characters and the cheap visual effects in the _Fantastic Four_ films and the importance of Geoff Johns in almost all of the DC collections.  Zayn cheats his way to an affectionate grin by sliding an arm around Liam’s warm back, fingers curling around his hip.  He doesn’t tell Liam how much he enjoys his scent – still a warm sweaty smell but there’s cheesy body spray trying to mask it and an apple-y lip balm overpowering the rest – but his fingers tug down the front of Liam’s beanie until the shadows tone down the color of his eyes and those cheeks are stained a velvet pink when Zayn pulls back.

He’s still in Liam’s baggy hoodie and Liam keeps sneaking glances at him like _‘I’m all over you’_ when he asks, “Why boxing?”

Liam times a smirk with the calloused fingers he presses into Zayn’s spine, nudging their hips.

“I’m sure you know _why_ – “

“I know what the internet says,” Zayn argues softly, “and I’ve seen the countless interviews, but like, I want _you_ to tell me.”

Liam grins, abashed and wide.  He looks away but his loose lips say otherwise.

“I wasn’t a normal bloke growing up,” Liam admits under a rough breath, “I liked my comic books and cartoons and I was always, always sick.  And I couldn’t always hang out with the other blokes because of it.  I tried to fit in but I still had a bit of baby fat and dodgy haircuts and my only real mates were me sisters and Andy.  Pretty pathetic.”

Zayn wants to scold him, wants to tell him his only friends were invisible or his Power Rangers action figures but he doesn’t because he’s too caught on the little frown stretching Liam’s lips to collect the proper syllables.

“Got shoved around a lot.  I mean _‘lads will be lads’_ right?” Liam huffs, presenting Zayn a shaky grin that freezes Zayn’s blood.  He stutters out an aching laugh before adding, “Me mummy always tried to get me involved in a bunch of activities but I was shit at sports back then.  Got bullied quite a bit because of it.”

“And you – “

“And me sister’s boyfriend suggested I start boxing,” Liam finishes, something genuine shifting over pliant lips.  “It’s a solo sort of sport.  Teaches you a bunch of things amongst strength.”

 _Like how to make a person breathless_ , Zayn thinks and feels like an idiot when his lips won’t stray away from this silly grin when Liam looks down at him.

“Got knocked around a lot in the beginning.  Mum wasn’t happy with me busted face,” he laughs, thumbing along Zayn’s spine to a silly Etta James number in the background.  It’s jazzy and reminds him of his mum forcing his father to dance with her in the middle of their kitchen and he absolutely does not swoon when Liam breathes out _‘and life is like a song’_ when they’re silent.

“And the Olympics?” Zayn encourages even though he wants to ask about everything else, too.

Liam smiles happily, coaxes the same response from Zayn’s lips when he ducks in closer.  Their warm breaths mix in the cold air and Zayn swears half of the night’s sky is buried in those irises.

“I don’t really remember,” Liam laughs with twitching lips, half of a dimple pressed into his cheek.  “I only remember everyone in the stadium on their feet, cheering me on afterwards and throwing up champagne at the celebration later on.  It’s still a blur, really.  Just Andy hugging me and my parents crying and my coach looking so fucking proud.”

 _And your smile destroying most of London_ , Zayn thinks to say but he smiles instead and he thinks Liam gets it.

He _hopes_ he does.

“What about you?” Liam inquires under the roar of passing cabs and an evening double-decker half-filled with tourists.  He smiles while dragging his fingers up Zayn’s back, waiting on the inevitable reaction.  “No one really says much about your story.  And I can’t research it all over Google, either.”

“Have you tried?” Zayn teases and the instant blush gives him away.

Liam rubs mercilessly at the nape of his neck, chewing his bottom lip.  “Maybe.”

Zayn sighs out a trembling laugh with three-quarters of his heart caught in his throat and his bones incinerating under Liam’s gaze.

“Not much of a story, really,” Zayn explains, focusing his eyes on their feet and the way their legs move in this absent synchronization.  “Was a bit of a shy kid.  Didn’t really like being around too many people.”

Liam nods along, sneaking fingers beneath the fabric and the hot touch stripes Zayn’s insides a splash of exotic colors.  He struggles with his lung capacity, twitches closer until Liam shoves a smile to his cheek that the heavy clouds shadow from the rest of the world.

“I always loved artwork,” Zayn adds between inconsistent breaths, “My dad is an amazing artist.  Me older sister too.  I just like sketching stuff – “

“Like your tattoos?” Liam asks and Zayn’s immediate reflexes counteract the blush when his fingers swipe over the exposed ink on Liam’s forearm.

“Yeah,” he breathes, “Like, I don’t know.  It’s like a rush for me.  I like singing too.”

Liam hums a response that sounds something like _‘a thrill that I have never known’_ and his heart gives a discouraging throb that he’ll never forget.

“I wanted to try out for the X-Factor,” Zayn admits softly, lips dragging up into a smile when Liam adds, even quieter, _‘I would’ve voted you into the finals, babe’_ and he loses the baritone of his own voice when he whines his satisfaction.

“But you didn’t.”

“Too lazy to get out of bed,” Zayn laughs, brushing the sharp shade of scarlet in his cheeks to the soft fluff of Liam’s jumper, “My mum tried to shove my arse out but I refused.  I don’t regret it, though, because – “

He swallows down the rest of the words – _‘the sights of London’_ and _‘the trips to Spain for test shots’_ – and blames it on the angry glow of the moon down on Liam’s features.  He bites at his lip, waits a breath until Liam nods and doesn’t press further.  He merely tangles their fingers together in the overflowing sleeve of Zayn’s hoodie and walks him all the way to the door.

They lap up the silence and the bright stars and the shared oxygen with talks about their sisters and the weather back home until Liam knocks him gently against the cold, cold metal banister for a kiss.  It’s slow, deliberately slow and penetrating until Zayn sneaks a laugh between sugary lips.  It’s nothing like some of their other snogs – the fast ones, the dirty ones, the ones Zayn has wanked off to _thank you Mr. Payne_ – and Zayn wants to press it to memory, along with the _‘and kids, this is how I fell for your father’_ that sits awkwardly between his ribs.

He’s thankful, begrudgingly, for Niall’s shit skills at being stealth when the door swings loudly open.  He peeks out with a twister of blonde hair, unfocused blue eyes like he’s smoked through a spliff, and a grimace.

“That’s it?  No tongue?” he scolds, shaking his head.  “Malik, you’re not even gonna invite him in for a blowie and morning coffee?”

Zayn groans roughly into the sleeve of Liam’s jumper while a laugh echoes in his ears – a sweet orchestra of something breathy from Liam and something disastrously loud from Niall – until he’s ready to dive headfirst into the Thames, even though he can’t swim.

“Go away,” Zayn mumbles with his lips around soft cotton but his fingers steal down Liam’s belly and gently mime out the shape of Liam’s cock through his jeans.

Liam gasps into his ear with blush inked to his cheeks and thumbs the waistband of Zayn’s briefs for the thrill of an abashed smile.

“You two are sickening,” Niall grumbles but still manages to swing out the door in a pair of loose Captain Marvel boxers and some borrowed knee socks from the last nameless girl he shagged on their dirty kitchen floor.

He produces a Sharpie and an unexplainably broad grin while Zayn presses his spine into Liam’s chest – and flushes at the way Liam’s arm instinctively coils around his waist like he can’t be bothered with Zayn walking away just yet – and glares at him.

“Niall,” he warns with a deep, reprimanding voice but Niall waves him off.

“I want the Payno to sign my boxer shorts,” Niall declares, laughing.  “Get it – _boxer shorts_?”

Zayn kicks at him until Niall scampers back into their flat like a wounded puppy, flipping him off before toeing the door closed in Zayn’s face.

“He’s manic,” Zayn huffs into Liam’s collar, traces up his bare forearm until goosebumps wake across his skin and follow the trail of his fingers.

“He is a bit weird,” Liam giggles, dragging his unshaven jaw over Zayn’s cheek and pressing closer.  “But I like him.”

Zayn doesn’t know – _not yet_ – why the happy tone of his voice or the warm touches or the way Liam fits himself like the missing center piece of a thousand-count puzzle into everything Zayn loves but he doesn’t struggle against the tide.

He lets the water lap around his shoulders and the undertow almost drags him under but Liam’s hands, sliding around the shape of Zayn’s narrow torso, pull him back up for air.

 

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“This is disgusting,” Niall crows while making a face in the low, soft lighting of their living room.

Zayn scowls and snaps his kitchen towel at him, puffing out a breath.  “I worked hard for four hours in a filthy kitchen for that.”

Niall smiles around a fork of spice-soaked chicken and fluffy exotic rice, picking away the roasted vegetables in favor of the earthy glaze.

“Not _this_ ,” he says with a mouthful, ginning back, “you and him.  Simply disgusting.”

His head is on fire and his heart is a little out of rhythm while his fingers go numb and he just wants to bury his daft grin behind the stupid fringe that falls over his eyes.  Instead, he ducks his head and watches Liam blush from the opposite end of the couch with his own plate of food in his lap and a still cold beer on the end table.

It’s not what he expected – an evening of a few of this favorite things: artistic lighting and soft music and a half-naked Niall twisted around a giggly Liam while playing rounds of Mario Kart on their rundown couch.

But this feeling evaporates over his skin, leaves a dewy coating over his flesh, and he only stumbles a little in the kitchen when Liam hitches his hips to an old Mario tune while Niall laughs in the background.

He’s a shit cook, he knows, but Niall tolerates his cooking for the lack of a good pizzeria on speed dial and Liam smiles through every forkful like there’s heaven on his tongue and nirvana sliding down his throat.  It aches a reassuring sensation through his blood until he cocks his head sideways to admire Liam, grinning him into submission and sweet blush and that stammering boy he remembers from that first day in the bookshop.

“You have to do me a favor,” Niall says to Liam with a fork pointed at Zayn and Zayn mocks him from the kitchen.

Liam perks up with a raised brow.

Niall grins in that mischievously bright look that terrifies Zayn and shifts a little closer on the cushions.

“You have to hook me up with some famous actress you know,” Niall insists and Zayn pushes out a long huff of air, relieved.  Niall tips his chin up, adds, “Or maybe that Barbara Palvin?  Even better – some hot piece of arse lad who doesn’t mind an Irish accent and a secret fetish for licking whipped cream off of his – “

Zayn grunts something embarrassingly high pitched that drags Liam’s eyes away and stirs a chuckle from deep in Niall’s chest.

He blinks at the wetly saccharine smile on Liam’s slack pink lips, feels the tension set into his bones when Liam snorts and turns back to Niall.

“Well, I think I know this one bloke,” Liam starts while Niall purrs and Zayn turns the music on the dock up to push out a hurricane of noise that drowns out all of the filthy things that slip past Niall’s lips.

He shyly crawls into Liam’s lap – because this is oddly domestic and fairy-tale-like and he’s not ready for that sort of commitment – and lets Liam feed him chicken from his fingers, catching the sharp hint of cayenne and the sour taste of glaze and the delightful flavor of something else across the pads of Liam’s middle and ring finger.  They share a beer and Liam curls around him like a cocoon until Niall gags, shoving his bare toes into their hips before they create a small space for him to nudge into.

“Just promise me,” Niall hums, sounding a lot drunk and a little bit sleepy from his upside down position on the couch and Zayn tries to swallow the hiss his lips produce when Liam slowly drags his mouth down the nape of his neck, “That when this actually turns into _something_ – “

“I thought it already was,” Liam whispers and Zayn does his best not to focus on that.

“ – that you both won’t turn into arrogant twats and forget your humble beginnings,” Niall finishes with a wrinkled nose and bleary eyes.

Zayn sighs loudly with Liam’s fingers catching in the tight fabric of his Henley.

“Niall,” he swoons, trapping fingers in freshly dyed hair, “You’re such a dreamer.  S’not ever gonna be like that.”

He thinks he says the words more for himself than for Niall.  He ignores the soft, sad noise from behind him and concentrates on the way Niall’s lips twitch into a smile.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” Niall accuses and Zayn wants to argue with him, needs to because Liam is not a –

He’s run out of words or adjectives or fucking similes that will sum all of this up so neatly because it’s messy and unexpected and clawing its way into Zayn’s chest.

“And ye’ll thank me later for letting you borrow my premium lube and wearing my headphones tonight,” Niall slurs, tripping up the steps and almost falling back down while Zayn attempts to sink into the couch but more into Liam’s strong arms instead.

Liam drapes a smile against the thin cotton over Zayn’s shoulder and lightly skims his fingers up Zayn’s ink-stained forearm and they shift quietly on the couch with the glow of _Shaun of the Dead_ on the television and the music still surrounding them.

“I don’t want to go,” Liam mumbles against the shell of his ear, scratching his fingers under Zayn’s shirt before outlining the shape of his ribs.

“So stay,” Zayn replies softly and he knows he’s quoting a line from some stupidly sweet film he’s seen a dozen times but he doesn’t care when the sound of his voice strokes a lazy smile over Liam’s lips and stutters his fingers over Zayn’s skin.

 

|+|

 

There’s no candlelight or bed of roses or warm satin sheets waiting on them but Niall has adjusted his playlist to include some choicely _filthy_ songs that Zayn skips through for something a little more _them_ –

And he hates how he’s so calm about the thought of a ‘ _them_ ’ and an ‘ _us_ ’ and a _‘me and you, babe’_ because it’s inappropriate.

It’s unrealistic.

It’s – _beautiful_.

There is, as promised, a half-used bottle of lube nestled between the freshly wrinkled sheets and a _‘How to have proper intercourse with the same sex’_ manual on his pillow – _sneaky bastard_ – and the room is tinted a silvery-blue from the high moon in the London skyline when they stumble through the door.

He’s temporarily distracted by Liam’s soft lips smearing little pink bruises over his collarbone, a tongue nudging at the Arabic stylized over his skin as they kick out of their shoes and fumble out of their shirts.  It’s completely comical – the way Liam gets his head stuck in his own collar while Zayn smacks into the door trying to detangle his wrist from the sleeve – and they’re laughing at each other with crinkled eyes and wandering hands until they’re close enough to kiss and tug at the flies of their jeans.

There’s still bits of spicy sauce under Liam’s tongue and hints of cinnamon stick behind his teeth.  His fingers stutter in Zayn’s thick hair when he applies just enough pressure from his teeth on a bruised bottom lip.  Liam keeps releasing all of these happy little sighs that play the most obvious distraction with confident fingers splitting the flaps of Zayn’s jeans, bare feet wiggling against the arch of Zayn’s foot when Zayn secures wiry arms around his neck and they both refuse to stop kissing even as they struggle out of the rest of their jeans.

“Thought about this,” Liam says into his neck, wrestling a neat line of kisses across his throat with his stubble scratching pretty little ruby marks over bare skin, “quite a bit.”

Zayn fists fingers into his hair and drags him back up to mouth out _‘and how did it go?’_ to bruised lips.

Liam giggles with trembling fingers stretching over twisting bones and pliant muscles.

“I dunno,” Liam sighs into a kiss but his hands and arms speak another language when he grabs a thigh and half of Zayn’s arse and elevates him up so easily.  “Wasn’t sure how you’d like it.”

“But the idea,” Zayn coos with Liam’s teeth over his collarbone and his own fingers soothing the tension at the nape of Liam’s neck, “got you hard, right?”

He snorts with spare fingers sneaking between them and catching the slick of Liam’s precome.

“Wanked off three times to it,” Liam breathes and Zayn doesn’t know why he trembles at the idea.

Liam smiles into his skin like he’s pleased, with Zayn’s thighs squeezing around his waist and his spine arching, and Zayn thumbs roughly over his slit in retaliation.

“Have you thought about it?” Liam wonders, half-chewing his lip as he carefully walks them toward the bed.  Zayn hides his face in the deep shadows under Liam’s chin, bites out a _‘yes’_ and licks out a _‘loads of times’_ and laughs out an aching _‘be rough if y’want’_ that has Liam groaning and pinching calloused fingers into his skin.

They kiss slow and lazy like there’s enough time for everything – the soft and the gentle and the rough and the raw art of it – and Liam lowers Zayn to his feet again.  Zayn stretches his neck and reaches on the tips of his toes until their noses brush, until they’re eye level and their kisses taste like _‘and they lived happily – ‘_

Wait, _not yet_.

“It’s been awhile,” Liam says but it’s just a distraction as he etches kisses down Zayn’s shoulder and reaches past him.  “I don’t wanna muck it up.”

Zayn smirks, drags errant teeth over Liam’s lobe, teaching his fingers the pull and stretch of all of Liam’s muscles.

“You can’t.”

Liam laughs, low and throaty and his voice is even rougher when he whispers, “You don’t know that, you donut.  I could be an absolute wreck in bed and – “

Zayn groans, dizzy and tense and _overwhelmed_ tastes quite suitable when Liam circles slick fingers around his hole, pushing just gentle enough to levitate the goosebump up Zayn’s spine.

“Bastard,” he laughs to cover the shiver and his muscles relax on instinct for Liam’s fingers.

“Don’t laugh when I’m horrible,” Liam warns against the stubble staining Zayn’s jaw.  “Terrible.  _Incredibly_ – “

“Brilliant,” Zayn moans, curling an arm around Liam’s neck and stroking lazily at Liam’s cock with his spine bowing for a middle finger, the slow intrusion of a second.

Liam huffs out something that’s a tangle between a moan and a whine and kisses the next few words off of Zayn’s lips.

He feels like he’s daydreaming – that slow bridge between adjustment and something beautiful.  It’s sharp and burning, an unfamiliar stretch because he’s spent the last few shags _pushing in_ rather than _opening up_ and he’s shy about looking at the space between their bodies to his toes curling against the hardwood and Liam’s foreskin hiding the saturated head.  He tries to control the shakes, the vibrato in his voice when Liam twists and presses and curls and –

 _Fuck_.

The song changes and thumps through the cracks in the floor with its chunky guitars.  Liam drags his lips over Zayn’s slack jaw, whispers an _‘I don’t want a model, I don’t want a movie star’_ that echoes in Zayn’s armor.  His thumb circles Zayn’s stretched hole with his fingers shoved in deep and Zayn can’t help the mewl that tumbles past his lips.

He grinds back against the fingers, holds his breath when Liam adds a third and all of his muscles seize up with delight.

Their kisses tip in that casual place between smoke and oxygen.  They smile through half of them like _‘I can’t believe this’_ and ‘ _this isn’t supposed to be amazing’_ before Liam twists and slides in a little awkwardly and then –

Zayn shakes and sinks his teeth into Liam’s throat to suffocate the moan.  Liam grins against his temple, gasps an _‘oh babe, there it is’_ that cheats all of Zayn’s thoughts of this boy.  This stumbling, nervous, geeky boy who’s an enigma in a boxing ring and a complete idiot outside of it and who shouldn’t be so amazed with himself but –

Zayn cranes his neck back and kisses the _‘I want you to win my heart’_ off of Liam’s mouth and tongues an _‘I just want someone true’_ over Liam’s parted lips.

They chase this feeling – the shakes and the unsteady hands and the rub of their hard cocks – down onto the sheets until Liam’s got one of Zayn’s legs cocked around his hip for easies access and Zayn’s rutting up against him for the friction.  Half of his spine doesn’t even touch the linen, curved and he digs his shoulder blades into the wrinkles while Liam stares down at him with this surrendering awe.  It splits half of Zayn’s neurons and complicates his breathing and his hand searches the sheets for the lube to slick Liam’s cock with.

“Did you think about how you wanted this?” Liam wonders, biting roughly on his bottom lip until it almost splits while Zayn adds too much lube to the shaft, thumbs the sticky tip wet.

Zayn grins and nods and shoves Liam back to turn onto his knees.  His thighs spread on instinct and his spine arches and he shamelessly glances over his shoulder with his stretched, shiny hole on display.  Half of his fringe falls into his eyes but he can still see Liam’s dilated eyes, can hear the thud of his heart over the _‘smoke with me babe and lay with me babe,’_ and he can almost make out the breathy _‘you’re incredible’_ that smudges unwanted blush all across his bare skin.

Liam strokes his cock halfheartedly while admiring him and Zayn moans impatiently, shamefully scooting backwards.

“C’mon,” Zayn sighs into his own shoulder, eyes dropping away while his muscles quiver in this unexpected anticipation.

Gentle, strong fingers grip a hip and he smiles down at the sheets because, _yes_ , but those fingers whisper touches over his skin and nudge him in another direction.  He’s defiant because – _no, Leeyum, on my knees and you can tug on my hair and I swear this one time I’ll beg for it_ – and an auxiliary hand skims up the back of his thigh until the diversion of touches clouds his mind.

Lips coax a small smirk over his mouth when they’re pressed to the fantail on the back of his neck.  An arm curls around his waist, muscles shoved into his ribs and _‘and laugh with me babe’_ slides down his skin when Liam gasps, “Turn over, babe.”

He groans out his discontent but Liam’s firm smack to his arse and perfected diversionary tactics win the war when he’s flipped onto his back.  He’s pressed down into the sheets with spread legs, his cock twitching against his belly and dark eyes, a half-smirk and a tight jaw above him.

“We can do it like that,” Liam mumbles, already teasing Zayn’s hole with the tip of his cock and Zayn’s embarrassed at the noises his lips emit, “but not this time, okay?  I want you to know – “

Liam pauses on a breath, crowds in closer with his elbows on either side of Zayn’s ears and the head of his dick catching on Zayn’s hole and then –

 _I just want the simple things_.

Sweat slicks down his throat, over the newly painted bruises.  It soaks his chest, across the inky wings and the lipstick print and down across the thick heart on his hip.  The sheets swallow him and he feels enclosed.  He feels claustrophobic and open and he breathes out the _‘smoke with me babe’_ before Liam smiles –

And he feels Liam _everywhere_.  Around him and inside of him and all through his pores, his blood.

 _Intense_ , he thinks but really all he wants is an _incredible_ to stitch over his tongue.

He’s barely tasting that full feeling before Liam bottoms out, hips nestled to his arse, and he’s still caught on an inhale before Liam bucks his hips and shatters what he used to call proper breathing.

His first whimper is pressed into the hollow between shoulder and neck as he shamelessly grinds back onto Liam.  He can feel the fingers on the side of his head twisting in the sheets and he clenches around Liam until the breathy yelp near his ear turns into a sob.

“You arshole,” Liam laughs but shoves and thrust back until Zayn forgets complete muscle control.

“Shut it,” Zayn smiles back, sucking in a breathy keen when one of Liam’s hands traces up his thigh and bends it wider for more room to fuck into Zayn with.

His little gasps – the ones he’s been holding in _just because_ – play like percussion to the music and Liam’s muscles twist all around him as he thrusts with this casual, slow brilliance that almost makes Zayn beg for more.

 _Almost_.

Just _not yet_.

It takes them awhile to relax into each other’s rhythm, to find a balance, but Liam is a willing learner and Zayn only gives in when that hand grips his hip so gently and strong rocking anchors him to the bed rather than that floating sensation he has whenever he looks up into Liam’s eyes.  And then their hips snap together and their breathing finds harmony and Zayn can’t look away.

Liam looks so _pleased_ , like he knows he’s breaking Zayn apart.  Like he knows he’s good at this.  Like he’s practiced, in the mirror, the right faces to pull to make Zayn’s cock throb harder and the ones that make him whimper out _‘more, please, just a little harder.’_

He isn’t arrogant like the last guy Zayn shagged or uncertain like that one lad who used his teeth while blowing Zayn.  He’s a little quiet at the start but with the right volume to his breathing and the sweetest dip in his voice when he croons _‘oh babe’_ into Zayn’s ear.

Liam presses their foreheads together when Zayn’s lips are loose and his jaw is malleable and he utters _‘I just want someone real, someone true’_ between kisses until a fire catches in Zayn’s lungs.  He laughs into Zayn’s mouth and stutters his thrusts until Zayn tightens his legs around Liam’s waist.

“Fuck me,” Zayn gasps and it’s meant to sound rough, raw but it slides out a little too needy, a quiet request.

Liam complies so quickly, like he’s been waiting, like he needed Zayn to give him permission.  His hips roll and he scoops an arm under Zayn’s hips for balance and slams into Zayn in a fury.  It rocks the headboard and he’s certain even Niall’s headphones couldn’t quiet the roar of his keens.  It loosens the bedframe, drags the sheets in opposing directions and Zayn tips his head back to still his breathing while he watches the half-moon in the distance –

And _perfect_ , he thinks.  It’s all he thinks.

There’s a sweet smile over Liam’s lips – _conniving bastard_ – when a hand steals between their bodies and he’s just teasing.  He’s just flicking his thumb under the head of Zayn’s dick, rubbing messy fingers over Zayn’s stomach to stain the precome there like artwork.  He’s flexing his jaw and whispering a seducing _‘I just want you’_ against Zayn’s cheek before he circles the shaft and the white noise engulfs him that quickly.

He’s tearing at the sheets with one hand, the other buried in Liam’s wrecked hair and his muscles cramp, tighten, lose stability as he comes between their shifting hips.  It’s an echo of deep breathing, his throat dry, until Liam’s just tickling the head.  He’s hypersensitive and this overwhelming flush to his skin shows through all of the tattoos when Liam gentles him back into the sheets.

Liam comes with a slow rock of hips, sheathed deep inside of Zayn’s hole.  It’s a gasp, teeth biting at his lip like he’s abashed by all of the little noises he’s making, and he shakes all the way down his thighs.  It’s a little amusing but that raw burn to Liam’s cheeks tugs something else inside of Zayn –

He wants to protect him and hide him and shield him even though Liam’s broader and there’s more muscle and he controls the tension in his jaw better than Zayn does.

Still, he tugs Liam down into this evaporating cloud and kisses a litany of _‘you, raw babe’_ across his jaw.  He waits a few seconds until Liam’s warm and a little stronger.  The moon swells gorgeously in the background and the sheets are drenched in their sweat and the lube and the slick come sliding from his hole, smeared from his stomach when he turns over.

He bites at Liam’s shoulder when his eyes crinkle and he releases a sweet laugh that burns what’s left of Zayn’s resilience.

“Pretty decent?” Liam giggles, shifting against the sheets with an arm thrown over Zayn’s hip.

Zayn makes a face, ignores that smug quirk to Liam’s lips.  “I’ve had better.”

Liam chokes out a snicker and Zayn rolls his eyes, tumbles into Liam to press an _‘incredible’_ to his birthmark that soothes all of the other admissions still waiting in his chest.

 

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He waits until Liam’s melodious and sleepy and curling around him to whisper, “I haven’t had better.  Ever.  And I’m not quite sure what that means.”

Liam mumbles something over his collar and tightens his arms around Zayn’s chest and the words that crowd Zayn’s mouth feel inaccurate.

They feel unworthy of this stupid, stammering, incredible boy.

 

|+|

 

Zayn spent a few months when he was fourteen reading about the meaning behind dreams – the lucidity of pure white clouds, the definition behind peaceful waters, that sinking sensation when caught in a tide – and he’s incredibly certain that he must be dreaming.  He must be somewhere between a fantasy and that blurred around the edges sensation of just waking up because it’s unconceivable for something this breathtaking to not be a hallucination.

A lazy smile spread over swollen lips, the sheets twisted around a long torso.  There’s fingers swimming in the linen, reaching for bits of his own skin like _c’mere, I need you closer_ and he can almost hear the words in a heavy, scratchy voice echoing in his ears.

The early morning sun shimmers off tan skin and Liam tries to hide his obscenely pink cheeks in the wrinkles of the sheets but the flush stains his neck and shoulders and Zayn is lost on him.

“Breakfast?” he offers instead of _good morning_ , caught in the disharmony between his lungs and heart for a few seconds.

Liam grins with his nose skimming a warm pillow, fanning his eyelashes roughly over his cheeks like an owl.  He sneaks a few fingers over Zayn’s bare calf – just for the touch – and it strings uncoordinated rhythms deep into Zayn’s cells.

“I was thinking,” Liam starts and it reminds Zayn of a few months back when Harry was obsessed with beginning all of their discussions over wine and cheap films with _‘I was wondering if things were different’_ and Zayn bites down on his smile to focus.

Liam clears the sleep from his throat, teeth working against a bruised lip – from the in-between kisses they shared during the night – before saying, “My manager – “

“Is that what you’re calling Andy these days?” Zayn teases and Liam fights back with dull nails scratching along Zayn’s thigh until his skin looks an angry red that he laughs at.

“My manager, _Paul_ , says I’ve been invited to this art exhibit somewhere just east of London,” Liam continues with a grin that shoves politely at his cheeks, “It’s a small affair and the designer is an old schoolmate, I believe.  It’s a showcase about the effects of neo-impressionism on conceptual art and the study of realism throughout most of Eastern Europe.  And I was thinking we could stop at this tiny little Italian takeaway place afterwards because Harry tells me you’re in love with their spicy pasta.”

Zayn blinks at him with wide eyes, a curved mouth, fingers chasing Liam’s skin between the soft linen.  He leans down to get a closer view of the tint to his skin and his heavy exhales almost drowns out the _‘I would love it if we could take a walk through Hyde Park with coffees afterwards, too’_ but he catches it with a smirk.

“Where’d you learn all of those terms?” he asks, lips quirking instantly.

Liam looks a little abashed, sinking into all of the wrinkled cotton – _like in dreams_ , he thinks – but his fingers twist around Zayn’s so naturally that it frightens Zayn –

And _be strong, be a hero_ seeps deep into his bones to stop him from jerking back like he’s been struck by lightning.

“I stole a brochure from Paul’s desk and memorized half of the shit written in it just for this,” Liam admits in that stammering voice that Zayn adores.  He attaches a _‘just for you’_ that disrupts all of the white noise in Zayn’s ears.

Instead of responding, Zayn presses a messy kiss to Liam’s forehead, drags spare fingers through his destroyed hair until it looks soft and tangled.

“Eggs and toast and orange juice in twenty minutes,” he says but it tastes like an _‘of course babe’_ and sounds almost like a _‘yes, please, yes’_ but he hides it all in a smile and scrambles away.

“And maybe,” Liam calls while Zayn slides into a pair of old boxers, pulls on Liam’s shirt instead of his own.  He glances over his shoulder and there’s something automatically vulnerable in Liam’s eyes that wraps around his organs.  “Maybe we could take Lou and Harry to view a few houses I researched that aren’t that far out from the city with a fantastic view of the countryside but still close enough to the nightlife.”

Something hitches, serrates his breathing and he tugs his fingers through his own hair to stop himself from diving back into those sheets – and those strong arms – just to kiss Liam quiet because –

And _they lived happily ever_ –

It’s stupid, maddeningly daft and he nods at Liam with the kind of smile he knows can’t be withdrawn before shoving out of the room just for a taste of dull oxygen.

 

|+|

 

He fries up eggs in the kitchen with Vampire Weekend blaring from the hall and Niall swallowed in a thick afghan on the couch and he feels so _alive_ with the sun painting half of the floor tiling a pale yellow.  His hair is an inky twister, Liam’s wrinkled shirt hanging loose on his shoulders with the faded print of that scruffy gym’s name broad across his chest.  His bare feet keep time with the percussion and his loose boxers hang low on his hips and Liam’s somewhere brushing his teeth with a soft giggle that Zayn can hear above the _‘lately when I look into your eyes I’m going down’_ in his ears.

The toast is that light brown he loves and his head is swimming – more like _drowning_ because he never taught himself how to float over the water – with this incredible sensation he can’t quite shake.

It’s euphoric and a little manic but that neat space between underwater and wading he’s read about.

It feels almost, almost like –

He is not a stereotypical lead character in an overused genre about clueless people falling arse over tit for the unexpected hero.

“There’s something on your sleeve,” Niall teases from beneath a mountain of woven yarn and Zayn flips him off while pouring the juice and setting up the kettle.

They laugh together, between the _‘my kisses used to turn you inside out,’_ and Zayn’s only a little startled at the heavy knocking at the door, the buzzer shaking the walls.

“If they’re selling fruit cakes, m’not in the mood for sweets,” Niall barks with a grin as Zayn toes over the cold floors, “but if they’re selling a shag, give me five minutes to find me a condom, yeah?”

Zayn snorts over his shoulder, pushing his hair out of his eyes while wiping grease on the small stretch of hip exposed between shirt and boxers.  He gives a long stretch at the door with his fingers twisting the knob and, if he believed in premonitions or the cause and effect of happiness leading to untimely disaster, he would’ve thought through answering the door like this.

It’s not the flashing cameras or dozens of people standing outside of his flat that alarm him first.  It’s the thundering shouts, the _‘where’s Liam’_ and _‘how long have you two been together’_ and the _‘isn’t that his shirt you’re wearing are you two shagging has he finally ended things with Danielle does he know about your past life as a – ’_ that shock his eyes wide and chase a cold sweat down his spine and strangle him breathless.

He thinks he read, somewhere just before ninth year, about out of body experiences and the aftermath and this feels like those few seconds after someone has shouted _‘brace for impact.’_

“There he is!  It’s Liam!” one of the reporters with a camera shoved into Zayn’s face shouts just before Zayn is hip-checked out of the way and the door slams shut.

He’s shaking and overwhelmed and confused when he blinks hard at Liam pressed to the door with his head tipped back and his skin two shades paler.

“Shit,” Liam groans, thudding his head to the wood with a bare chest, trembling fingers pulling through his hair, and Zayn’s jeans tight around his hips.  “Fucking shit.”

Zayn stares at him with a blank expression that quickly turns horrified and Liam skips a few breaths with his eyes lowered –

And it’s in that second that Zayn realizes it’s the first time Liam has chosen not to look at him and the effects of that alone shouldn’t be so hazardous.

He swallows, feels a little helpless as Liam strides away from the door toward the kitchen.  He watches Liam kick at an empty chair, find his phone, squeezing it tightly before sighing.

“How the fuck did they know,” Liam says to himself, his chin tilted downward with heavy eyes.  “I can’t – fuck, they can’t be here.  I’m fucked.  It’s gonna be everywhere and – “

There’s a restless breath pushed out of his lungs and something dark and stiff shivers down Zayn’s chest because –

“They know who I am.”

“What?” Liam asks but his voice is still rough, harsh.  He’s cupping the nape of his neck anxiously, teetering on his feet and he looks nothing like that boy from the bookshop.

He looks like the fighter with the bruised cheeks, discoloring around his eye, broken skin across his knuckles.

And there’s a whole world separating them and it sets in.  It’s the first time in weeks that Zayn’s thought about the ocean dividing them.

“I can’t,” Zayn hisses, shoving through the kitchen, knocking his shoulder against Liam’s as he passes and he tugs away from those loose fingers circling his wrist without a thought.  “I can’t let them – fuck, man.  It’ll be everywhere and me family back home and – _fuck_.”

Liam quirks an eyebrow at him, everything unsettling and Zayn tries not to feel shattered when he shoves clothes at Liam with narrowed eyes.

“You can’t be here,” he says but those harsh words, the rough exterior of his voice feels completely unwanted.  He can’t quite settle his breathing, can’t stop his hands from shaking but he tries.

Fuck, he tries so hard.

“Zayn,” Niall says softy from the archway, looking a little confused and incredibly sad and Zayn can’t glance at either of them.

Not with this stinging behind his eyelashes and this unwarranted burn in his veins.

“I can’t,” Liam repeats, quietly.  He’s clutching the clothes but his feet are motionless and Zayn crumbles a little when he takes in the flush of Liam’s cheeks, the disappointment in the set of his mouth, the shiny gloss over his eyes.

Liam shakes his head, phones up a car with his back to Zayn, and his voice so, so low – so, so broken.

The eggs burn and the toast goes cold and Zayn props himself against the counter with his face in his hands.  His morning stubble scratches his palms but he refuses to watch the unbearable sight of Liam’s tight spine, the way he shuffles slowly into his clothes, the strain of muscles that twisted around him just hours ago.  He thinks it’s adequately _haunting_ when the music in the background warns them _‘a sharp stab of heartbreak won’t get you through’_ but neither of them repeat the words this time.

Liam’s bottom lip is bruised from nervous teeth when he slides on a pair of Ray Bans, scrubs fingers through Niall’s soft hair like an _‘I’m sorry, I swear I am’_ before shuffling through the kitchen toward the car and PR team waiting for him on the other side of the door.  He pulls his hood over his head but chances a small look over his shoulder that stings over all the bits of Zayn’s skin his fingers once roamed.

Zayn feels unarmed, chewing on this thumbnail while holding a breath.  Instinct, undeniably loud in his ears, tells him to chase that broken boy all the way to the door and kiss promises to his lips and expose all of his secrets just for that goofy smile he remembers.

Instead, he looks down at all of the ink across his forearm and the roar of the reporters outside as Liam fights through them towards the car are muted against the sound of Zayn’s unsalvageable heart.

 

|+|

 

Hours later, he refuses to admit he feels broken or destroyed or betrayed when Niall cuddles up to him in his bed.  Not even after he reads the tweet from hours before –

_@niallofficial – right good time tonight w/ @Real_Liam_Payne !! thanks @zaynmalik ur the best… threesome later??_

Or when Niall whispers an _‘I’m sorry’_ into his cold skin.  It refuses to heat up without a pair of strong arms, ink-stained forearms, soft kisses scratching down his spine.

He merely snuggles in closer until blonde hair catches in his eyelashes and bitten-fingernails ride down his shoulder blades just to temper his breathing.  He absently scrubs dampness to Niall’s collarbone and regrets ever reading those novels as a child about a prince charming or _a land far, far away_.

Because he doesn’t believe in any of that.

And it’s so appropriate that the London sky turns a sharp grey and the thunder rumbles in the distance and the first few pelts of rain streak his bedroom window like an unnecessary sob over something lost.

He falls asleep on Niall’s shoulder to the scent of wet streets, Niall’s second cigarette, and Liam smeared all across his safe haven.  But it takes him a few breaths to forget Niall’s quiet voice singing _‘and northern downpour sends its love, hey moon please forget to fall down’_ into his hair.

 

|+|

 

It only takes a few hours for their pictures to spread across the media websites.

They’re just distorted views of himself, a few of Liam in the background but mostly just Liam trying to squeeze through the crowd towards the car with his head down.  He shuts off his phone immediately, stares down into a cup of tea until it goes cold and smokes through half a pack in only a few breaths.  He’s distracted by the way his hands won’t stop trembling and that taunting moon hanging over the city that keeps reminding him he’s alone under a big, big purple sky.

It takes exactly three days before the press unearths bits of information about him.

He tries to ignore all of the headlines – the ones littered with _‘Olympic boxer Liam Payne ditches efforts to repair relationship with dancer-girlfriend and is seen near Knightsbridge after a night with fit former model Zayn Malik – ‘_ in varied structures and wording – but the requests on Twitter and the messages from back home are overwhelming.  Then the pictures – from Milan, photo shoots just south of Paris, cheesy images from his early days at seventeen, a trashy night in Madrid after far too many shots – scatter across the social media and he takes to sitting in the dark with a sketchpad, charcoals, and the music on an indiscernible level.

He doesn’t sleep, really.  There’s fits of heavy eyes and kips in between breaths but nothing consistent.  His mind stays on a constant loop of _‘you can’t be here’_ and the frequency gets louder and louder when the sheets go cold, his skin a little tighter, his hands still shaking.

And after a week, when the buzz dies down and the world focuses in on another scandal between cheating lovers and another royalty getting married, he stops walking with his shoulders hunched and black coffee replacing his morning tea.  He doesn’t twist his phone anxiously between his fingers waiting for someone to call –

But he still glances at it, every half-hour, with anticipation.  With a guilty hope.  With this little, persistent tick underneath his heart and he remembers when his sister Doniya used to call him _‘broody’_ for playing Drake for hours after a silly breakup.

That’s what this is, right?  _Silly_.

Completely, utterly, inescapably that.

 

|+|

 

Zayn takes on a few double shifts when Michael goes home for holiday and buries himself in the quiet aisles and the enchanted words for hours at a time.  He’s a little careless with his smile for the customers, a raised brow for each pair of questions he gets and a few hard stares when someone recognizes him.  He hides away between Keats and Dan Brown and traces the words with his fingers as he finishes _the Half-Blood Prince_ for the second time.

It’s a calm, calm Wednesday with half of the lights shut off and three minutes before the shop closes at ten, when the door chimes and the distraction of Bruno Mars on a minimal volume and halfway through another read of _the Blackest Night_ feel meaningless.  He’s expecting some university kid looking for a last minute, abridged version of some complex read for a paper and –

“Hey you.”

There’s something about that dumb, fond smile that’s unpredictable to him now.  Those large brown eyes and strong jaw and nervous fingers clutching a cardboard cup of hot coffee.  The snapback to hide his hair and a loose jumper that refuses to hide that stain of a birthmark.  Spare fingers are massaging the tendons at the nape of his neck and Zayn hasn’t felt this vulnerable in so long under the gaze of another boy.

He sniffs, finishes stacking books he needs to return to the shelves but can’t quite bite back the tremor in his voice when he says, “ _Leeyum_.”

Something breaks instantly across those raw-bitten pink lips, cheeks a highlighter pink even though it’s pitch black outside and the bookshop is darkened under the low set of lights still on.  Liam leans in the doorway like he’s waiting for permission, like he’s caught between worlds and Zayn huffs out a breath, jerking his head until Liam locks the deadbolt, flips the _‘closed’_ sign and follows.

Liam steals the set of books in his arms and shoves the coffee between his fingers before he can argue and Zayn wants to resist that stupid little grin he shoots him but he can’t.  Instead, he leads Liam down the dusty aisles and they speak in glances rather than meaningful words.

“Oscar Wilde,” Zayn says between sips when Liam reaches to return a few books.

“Who?” Liam asks with a quirked eyebrow and the almost shameful laugh that sputters past Zayn’s lips dulls the tension set between their not touching bodies.

Zayn shakes his head with a smile he can’t seem to conceal and nudges gentle fingers into the dip of Liam’s spine to guide him down another aisle.

He watches Liam stretch tall to reach a few of the higher shelves, his hoodie riding up.  He spots hints of tan skin bruised a deeper color near his spine and hisses quietly from the sight rather than the hot coffee that burns his tongue.  Liam tugs the material down quickly, ducking his head to shadow the blush as he swallows.

“Training a little harder for this next fight,” Liam explains with a guilty little grin.

Absentmindedly, Zayn’s fingers sneak beneath the thick cotton and massage over the taut skin until Liam’s reduced from harsh whimpers to mild breaths –

And this odd, vaguely familiar feeling between them heats up like electricity and leaves Zayn’s gravity out of orbit again.

They separate quickly – because Liam still looks apprehensive and Zayn’s restless heart is a little too loud – and Zayn silently directs him down the graphic novels section with a pile of _Captain America_ books piled in his arms.

Liam’s got a pair of shiny Aviator sunglasses tucked into the collar of his hoodie that Zayn steals and uses as a distraction to the way their knuckles brush every few steps.  It’s a tight squeeze when they walk shoulder to shoulder but neither of them nudges away, not even when Liam twists – and Zayn follows like a ship guided by a compass – to reach around him for a used copy of _Batman: the Long Halloween_.

“Is it okay if,” Liam pauses and stares at their almost touching chests and bumping feet, “if I say I missed you?”

Zayn snorts, redirects his eyes from that completely abashed look on Liam’s face.  He passes over his coffee and coils their fingers together – even if he shouldn’t and _Greek tragedies_ , he remembers – to drag Liam towards the Fine Arts section.

The minimalistic lighting of his little corner only heightens the soft of Liam’s cheeks and the hints of caramel in his eyes and his chapped pinks lips spread into a smile when they settle on the floor under the heavy dust of stars in the sky.  Their knees knock together and Zayn uses his auxiliary hand to turn the pages while Liam watches him instead of the neatly penciled lines.

“I still want to see you,” Liam admits halfway through their unavoidably loud breathing, those spurts of silence that are far from uncomfortable with their fingers still twisted.

Zayn looks up through his lashes, holds a breath in his chest until it fogs everything and leaves him lightheaded.  His fingers scratch a _‘me too’_ to the back of Liam’s hand but he can’t say it.

Not even if he tried.

Liam laughs, eyes crinkling.  “I’m in deep shit for interrupting training to see you and I’ve been paying for it but – but, like, it’s been worth it.  Honestly, every second.  S’that bad?”

Zayn rolls his eyes and pretends not to feel his cheeks heat up.  There’s something regrettably endearing in his voice when he whispers, “Not at all.”

He winces at the tone, turns his eyes away immediately but Liam detangles their fingers just to catch his chin and force him back.  Their gaze holds for a second too long, with calloused fingers rubbing over his scruff, and they don’t smile at each other – but it feels that way on the inside.

“So it’s okay if we still, well, I don’t know if we were – “

 _We weren’t_ , Zayn thinks because it’s an easy way out.  It’s cheap and less distracting and has gotten him through nearly two weeks without this boy.

Liam swallows, nods.  “I was just hoping – “

Zayn groans lowly and that itching need to kiss Liam silent is overpowering but he resists.  He picks at the loose threads on Liam’s jeans and bumps their shoulders under the hum of the Beatles and _‘in my life, I love you more’_ in the distance feels incredibly familiar.

Liam cocks his head to the side with that overly-affectionate grin and Zayn’s heart speeds up, something like _from a whisper to a scream_ , with his teeth biting away the skin of his lip.  And those bright eyes hold him down to the words he didn’t mean in his kitchen until Liam sighs.

“I’m not sure,” Zayn whispers with his eyes lowered.

A thumb shoves at his chin and he’s unprepared for Liam’s smirk when their eyes shift over each other.

“Tell me about it,” Liam requests, bravery on his tongue, “I want t’know.  About your past.  About everything, really, but we’ll start with a few years ago.”

Zayn tenses and tender fingers drag away from his chin to ease down the nape of his neck, back up into the thick hair back there, over all of the muscle.  He scoots closer until his hip is pressed to Zayn’s, knocking away the novel and feeding Zayn small swallows of coffee until he relaxes.  A smile presses into his shoulder and those fingers won’t stop stroking in this comforting haze that attacks Zayn.

“I was a nobody,” Zayn explains with a looser tongue, eyes blinking shut.  He smiles, leaning in.  “Well, to the world, at least.  I was someone to my mates and my family – “

He breaks off the last few words when he thinks of his sisters, of his best mates Danny and Ant, of his father’s face and his mother’s hard eyes.

“It was just some art studies project for a girl I knew,” he continues, dragging his nose over Liam’s hoodie and he breathes in the scent that’s still stained to his sheets, “She needed a model for a few photos.  I thought it was dumb, nothing really.  Just before my A-levels and I was undecided on whether I wanted to do university after college.  Like, I wanted to make me parents happy but I liked drawing and stuff.  Nobody in my family made any money off of that kind of stuff, y’know.”

Liam nods along with those fingers adding pressure, seeping the tight coils out of Zayn’s cells.

“But then our teacher used some of the stuff I did for a silly ad campaign for a nearby art school.  And then there were more photos and phone calls and,” Zayn spares a secret smirk in the shadows, “I got a couple of calls.  A few agents and stuff.  I was just some dumb kid from Bradford and, suddenly, I was smashing it, mate.  I was feeling like – like I was really someone.”

Liam breathes a happy noise into his hair, disguises it by adding a circling thumb to the side of Zayn’s neck, in the hollow behind his ear.

“They wanted me in London for test shots and then I got booked for print, in daft catalogues for men’s clothes,” he adds with a hint of fondness he can’t recoil just yet.  Fingers down the top of his spine, just beneath the collar, coax out, “Then there was an agency who wanted me for a show or two in Paris.  A few stopovers in Manchester, a magazine shoot in Nice.  And I’d never been on a plane or had a passport.  It was mad and I was scared as shit.”

He catches a giggle in Liam’s throat, the quiet press of a kiss to his temple like _I would’ve been proud of you_ is meant to replace the touch.  It drags an unused breath of courage up his spine that meets Liam’s fingers at the halfway –

“My baba, he was sort of supportive.  He always thought I’d be a writer or summat and finish university but he didn’t mind,” Zayn says in a soft voice.  It aches of vulnerability and his skin pricks with goosebumps.

“And your mum,” Liam encourages, nudging Zayn’s chin up.

Zayn refuses to look at him, watches the dull stars in the absence of brown eyes.

“She thought it was manic and dumb,” he shakes out, biting his lip hard.  “Said her son was better than just a pretty face.  Said I’d regret it.  She wanted me to finish school, find a career, to be better than me parents ever were.  Just a kid following somebody else’s dream, I guess.”

Liam presses a thumb just under Zayn’s eyes to smear away the unnoticeable wetness and Zayn squeezes his eyes shut until it’s a blur and a harsh collision of colors behind his lids.  He lets out something like a laugh except it doesn’t sound like one he knows and it’s just a disguise.  Liam shushes him with lips against the rim of Zayn’s ear.

“She stopped ringing me when I moved to London.  She didn’t really say much when I’d visit and sort of stopped asking me to come back for holidays, even if my sisters begged and my cousins called,” he explains, still working words around that large lump in his throat.  His lashes get stuck together and Liam hums gentle into his hair and he might not know how, but he thinks Liam’s teaching him how to swim.

“What happened in Madrid?” Liam inquires when Zayn stops breathing in dust for oxygen again.

He’s a little closer with a hand in Zayn’s hair and cold coffee between their feet and it’s almost midnight, he can tell, by the arrangement of the moon.

Zayn puckers his lips for a put upon smile, tipping his head back and it’s caught by strong muscles rather than a hard shelf.

“It was early into last year, before the Olympics – “

“While I was training,” Liam whispers and dips his smile into Zayn’s collar when he’s not paying attention.

Zayn hums a response, nodding.  “I was out with a gang of other models on a shoot there but the first night, a few of the lads and a couple of the girls all went out.  I don’t usually club or party but – “

He freezes a little and it’s not from the careful fingers Liam’s pressing into his muscles to strengthen the thrum of his voice.  There’s dry lips under his jawline, the heat of Liam’s breath stretching over the cold thoughts and uncontainable words.

“They kept passing around drinks, stuff I’ve never had before.  I sort of lost count, lost my mind, really.  It was loads of fun at the time,” Zayn explains with a sigh between words.  Lips at the heart of his throat now, soothing bites and flicks of tongue that are meant to appease the rattle of his heart.  “I passed out, somewhere.  Slept right through the morning shoot.  I couldn’t get out of bed for the few appointments I had with some agencies out there.”

Liam mumbles something into his skin, fingers splayed across all of the ink stitched into Zayn’s forearm.

Zayn laughs something soft but it rolls like a whimper, shaking around the edges.

“The next day, I missed another casting.  Was too sick, y’know?  I just – I couldn’t,” Zayn adds, trying to subside the trembles.  “The company I had a contract with dropped me the next week, my management too.  Agencies didn’t want to book me because I was still too green.  Didn’t have the right look.  They thought I was a complete mess because people like, they talk, y’know.  The stories they can make up about some young lad from Bradford who dicked about in Spain, shagged around instead of prepping for a shoot.  Just bullshit.”

There’s hints of lingering warmth under his skin from where lips drag maddeningly slow over his neck, press out promises that Zayn can’t hear but soaks in anyway.  A thumb scratches up his forearm and Liam curls just enough around him that he can’t quite escape and definitely doesn’t try to.

“Hey,” Liam whispers in the dark, under the moon, in what feels like _their_ corner now, “If it means anything, I sort of believe in fate.”

Zayn snorts and Liam pinches him with a _‘don’t laugh at me you donut’_ between their breaths and almost touching lips.

“I almost went to Spain to train and I almost didn’t make it to the Olympics,” he adds when their noses brush, “And I almost didn’t stop by here that morning because I was running behind in me training.  But I did and this incredible boy – “

“Me,” Zayn snickers quietly but his pink-smeared cheeks disprove his smug tone.

“ – was there and I sort of think it was _fate_ that you didn’t travel the globe as just a pretty face,” he breathes and they stare at each other until it hurts after that.

“We might’ve met somewhere else,” Zayn mumbles with his lips curving upward.  “Knightsbridge in the middle of the snow and the holidays?”

Liam giggles, his thumb pushing Zayn’s chin up and his lips into the right angle.

“In the middle of Selfridge’s buying the same pair of Iron Man boxers?” he offers.

“Maybe in New York City while I was walking runways and you were booking out Madison Square Garden?”

“In a small garden just north of here?  You studying Shakespeare – “

“I prefer Twain,” Zayn interjects with the kind of smile that’s misleading without the proper view.

“ – and a cup of coffee and maybe I would manage to say something clever,” Liam says to Zayn’s lips rather than him.

Zayn’s laugh echoes into Liam’s mouth and he shoves a _‘like has anyone told you that you look like someone famous?_ ’ against Liam’s teeth with a slick tongue.

“Someone _important_ , babe,” Liam corrects, nipping at Zayn’s bottom lip and soothing the ache with lazy kisses.  “And, yeah, something like that.”

Zayn doesn’t quite remember the rest, just this –

One of Liam’s hands in his hair, the unused one on one of his knees, their teeth bumping and tongues chasing words, his fingers crawling across hidden bits of skin, and the harmonious moan they share when they both realize this is a little more than silly fables about people and fate.

 

|+|

 

But even in the dark, they don’t say it and Zayn burns away that toxic affection in his lungs with long kisses and listens to Liam recount all of his first major fights until they’re sleepy.

Liam walks him home, under a foggy bed of stars and without all of the cameras following them because they’re not _that_ _important_ – but maybe just to each other.

And he smiles between goodnight kisses that never end and waits a whole five minutes before Niall peeks out with a grin and lavender-dyed hair this time and almost invites Liam inside.

 _Almost_ until he whispers _‘you’re a gentleman’_ into Liam’s mouth and listens for the giggle and warm hands up his spine that follows.

 

|+|

 

They’re a month into this nameless thing of theirs – and it’s definitely a _thing_ , with hand holding, languid kisses behind the bookshop and the occasional morning coffee between Liam’s training schedule, midnight phone calls because they’re still a little abashed and definitely not ready to let the world in on this – when Liam leaves two tickets at a booth in Sheffield for him and Niall.

Their seats are a little closer this time, a row or two away from the ring with the harsh spotlights illuminating half of the crowd and it feels like a thousand eyes are on him when he shuffles down the aisle with Niall leading the charge.  He feel so recognizable now – even with one of Liam’s stolen snapbacks on his head and his reading glasses and one of Harry’s borrowed Rolling Stones shirts – and it’s a tiny bit familiar but not to this degree.

Not with people whispering and a few quick flashes from someone’s camera and security flanking their row.

“This is mad,” Niall cheers, dragging Zayn down with boxes of popcorn and bags of cotton candy and three beers for himself.

“Yeah,” Zayn breathes, shoulders tensing from just the view.  “I think people know – “

“Not you, fucker,” Niall laughs in that eased sound that Zayn loves just before noon when they’re cuddled down on the couch, “I’m talking about all of the hype for this fight.  It’s crazy, man.  He’s really rising in the ranks.”

Zayn arches an eyebrow, leans back into his seat and it’s then he notices all of the journalists and the cameras and the nearly eight hundred seats of the arena filling quick.  He listens to Niall’s low whistle over the Jay Z rattling all the empty sections of the building and takes in the officials chatting in the ring, the neatly lined up section that celebrities fill on the opposite end.  His breath hitches in his ears and his fingers scratch up the ripped sections of his jeans until Niall curls an arm around him.

“And, yeah, you arsehole,” Niall mumbles with grease staining his lips and sticky fingers catching on Zayn’s skin, “I think it’s sort of mad how me best mate and a gold medalist are shagging.  Ye gotta admit it – ‘s a dream come true.”

Zayn knocks him away and turns his head a little to cover up the blush and lets out a shaky breath when Andy and Josh nudge down the aisle to sink into the seats next to him.

“It’s about time you came back ‘round,” Andy shouts, tugging Zayn under his bulky arm while Josh reaches across to pat his knee and offer Niall a crooked grin.

“Hey,” Zayn sighs with an unintentionally affectionate smile that Andy cocks an eyebrow at.

“Miss me?” Andy wonders, stealing one of Niall’s beers like introductions aren’t necessary.

Zayn snorts, sinks a little lower in his seat with his boots kicked up on the empty one in front of them.

“Not really,” he teases but sneaks fingers between them to steal his phone and snap off a quick selfie with puckered lips and the flash outlines the sharp definition of his cheeks.

“Bullshit,” Andy laughs, snatching back his phone and forcing Zayn into another shot of just them.

“The beer here is better than the ones at the Derby games,” Niall announces during the in-between when they’re listening to introductions and announcements.

“Anything is better than a Derby game,” Josh cackles, barreling through a bag of red vines, “You’re following the wrong crowd, man.  Cardiff City is doing brilliant this season and the stadium there has manic crowds.  Shite bitters but bloody brilliant lager.”

Niall groans into Zayn’s shoulder but the playful curve of his pink lips is utterly ridiculous under the bright overheads.

“Ye actually think Campbell is better than Sturridge?  You’re daft, dude,” Niall says while passing over a beer and a crooked grin.

Josh smirks back, nodding while quietly brushing thick fingers over Niall’s knuckles.  “There’s no comparison.”

Niall shrugs, slouching down but he looks ready to crawl over them and into Josh’s lap and Zayn drags calming fingers through his swirl of blonde to stop him.

“Guess you’ll have to show me your team one of these days,” Niall hums over the Vaccines in the speakers and the chanting crowd.

There’s a thin smudge of pink over Josh’s cheeks, a subtle pull to his shoulders and he leans over Andy to softly reply, “Just might, yeah?  I think you’d have a good time.”

Niall wriggles his eyebrows while Zayn moans shamelessly, tucking his face in the crook of Andy’s neck.

“M’Niall by the way,” he huffs, fixing his hair with starlight blue eyes.

Josh draws back with a breathy laugh, fingers wrapped tightly around his beer.  “Josh.  Drummer and Liam’s real best mate.”

Andy crows and Zayn feels him shake with laughter but Niall’s fingers digging in his thigh are a stinging distraction.

“So you’re good with _sticks_?”

Zayn whines, kicks Niall away and sinks himself into the thrum of the applause and a wide spotlight lighting up the corridor of the arena that Liam appears out of.

He watches Liam fall into his zone, his usual routine – and it’s so telling that he knows every bit of this: the way Liam bounces restlessly from foot to foot when he’s in the ring like the adrenaline is overwhelming his cells and the quick shuffle he does out of his robe, the way he waves dumbly to the crowd like he still can’t believe he’s made it this far.  It’s that little shine in his eyes with his stupid smirk before he bows his head, the strain of shiny muscles as he kisses his taped-up knuckles.  The twisting tendons and exposed skin as he rotates his shoulders in the corner and –

He stops midway through all of it to search the crowd and Zayn’s heart speeds up.

It’s almost as if he’s mapped out the entire room, all of the seats until his eyes find Zayn’s in the middle of a hailstorm and his cheap smile – _clarity_ , Zayn thinks but his mind goes cloudy – is so endearing it chokes the oxygen around Zayn.  He shoots him this flashy smile, maybe just for the cameras, attempts a wink that is so comical and it’s just then that Zayn notices the poorly scrawled _‘Z’_ across the tape on his hands before he slides into his gloves.

Zayn tenses at the bell – _instinct_ , Harry told him at the last fight and Zayn hangs onto that and the other words he won’t repeat – and ignores Niall and Josh’s casual flirting and Andy’s booming voice and the first few punches from the other guy knock into Zayn’s ribs a little harder than the impact to Liam’s body.  He sucks in a deep breath when Liam dodges an uppercut and this guy is fast, brutal with his swings and Liam takes it all –

Not with the usual smile and there’s a hint of surprise in his eyes and he does a few defensive tricks he taught Zayn between another set of ropes.

He can almost hear the crowd over his thumping heart and he doesn’t know how long his dull nails are scratching into Andy’s forearm but the sharply ruddy skin he leaves behind gives him a little indication.  Andy smiles, knocks their shoulders while sipping Josh’s beer.

“Alright?” he asks loudly and Zayn nods even with the ‘ _no’_ lodged into his throat.

Andy raises his brow, nudges their knees together and turns back to the ring but Zayn knows he’s still watching him carefully.

By the third round, his skin is cold and he’s gnawed a nice bruise into his lip and Liam looks a little exhausted in the corner but he keeps fighting back.  He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the constant smack of leather against skin or the blur of bodies under bright white lights or the way he has to reteach his lungs how to breathe properly before every round.  His fingers wreck his hair under the snapback, eyes trained on the sweat coating Liam’s skin.

His breath stills on an inhale and he only remembers this –

A solid fist to Liam’s temple and a knee touching the mat before a hand catches the fall and Liam, breathless, almost crumpled on the canvas for a four-count that shocks the blood in Zayn’s veins.

Andy crowds in with an arm around Zayn’s motionless shoulders, lips brushing the shell of his ear.  “It’s like that every time,” he whispers with this assuring voice that will not calm the tidal wave inside of Zayn’s head, “Every single time I see him get knocked down.  It’s fucking scary but then – “

Liam pushes to his feet with a stammer and nods at the ref like he’s okay and smiles for the crowd with crinkly eyes and a bruised cheek.

“ – then he gets up and promises me it won’t happen again,” Andy breathes, tugging Zayn tighter to stop the shivering Zayn hadn’t noticed before.

“It won’t happen again,” Zayn repeats for himself more than Andy but he still feels Andy’s nod against his temple.

“Now watch our boy at his best,” Andy adds with a tinny laugh and fingers pressing the tension out of Zayn’s nerves.

Zayn thinks it’s a little cinematic – the way Liam makes a comeback and throttles the other guy through the fifth round and wins forty whole seconds into the sixth one with enough momentum behind a jab to topple him.  The cheers rattle half of the arena and the flash of cameras leave stars behind his eyes.  Andy tugs him to his feet and Liam leans over the ropes in their direction, smirking and waving.  There’s a smear of blood on his bottom lip and the skin around his left eye looks a little swollen but he grins so happily when his hand is raised again that Zayn feels a little helpless to this feeling –

And he’s not sure if it’s him or Liam who stops breathing first but their eyes meet and he doesn’t remember anything else.

 

|+|

 

They sneak out between the chaos and the still cheering crowd and the rush gathering fire all throughout Zayn’s circulatory system catches him off guard.  It’s not until he’s out in the cold, fresh air that his lungs expand to make room for everything else that he stops trembling.  But he bites his lip raw and huffs through a cigarette with Niall pressed to his hip and Andy whispering to the guards by the emergency exit.

He watches Niall and Josh talk under their breaths, the hum of their giggles and smiles to himself because, _okay, he knows that feeling now_.  It’s this insane, inescapable thing that leaves words on his lips he doesn’t quite know how to pronounce and he lights up another cigarette to share with Niall.

The nicotine doesn’t chase off the fuzziness between his nerves and he’s only halfway through another puff when a small crowd of reporters catch them and flash pictures with shouts and questions he can barely understand.

Zayn ducks his head with his teeth pressing firmly into his lip and Niall budging up next to him with a grin, almost shielding him.  And then it’s just a deafening shout of _‘what’s going on between you and the Payno?’ ‘are you two dating?’ ‘are you still modeling?’ ‘what about his relationship with his girlfriend?’_ and, finally, _‘are you in love with him’_ and he thinks –

He _can’t_ , really.

But he hears four letters over and over on a loop and the tremors start up when he tries to hold his cigarette to flick away the ash.

He gives them a small smile like a _‘yes’_ but not quite because he’s not sure what question he’s answering or why they care and he feels so much like that seventeen year old boy with small dreams and an opportunity to see the world and _fuck_ –

“Oi, back up,” Andy barks and jumps between them and Josh tugs him back while Andy roughly commands, “Quit being arseholes.  Leave ‘im be.”

The security nudges them inside and a line of wide shoulders keeps the press at bay but they keep chanting his name and the bright bulbs blind him until the heavy metal door slams shut.

Zayn presses himself to the cold surface until that adrenaline clouding his lungs goes numb with Niall nudged into his hip and Josh rubbing at his shoulder and the nicotine still under his tongue.  He shuts his eyes, schools his breathing, and _waits_.

He waits until things like _‘fight or flight’_ make a little more sense.  Until Andy smiles down at him and Niall whispers _‘worth it, trust me’_ and Josh nods.

Until he smears _‘this is not a love story’_ underneath the surface with his fingers twitching to bury themselves in thick caramel hair for an hour or two.

 

|+|

 

Or for the rest of his life, as painfully poetic and literary as that may sound in the background.

 

|+|

 

The backstage prep area is mostly empty when Andy knuckles a large hand to Zayn’s spine and shoves him inside while Niall drags Josh away for celebratory beers – or _blowjobs_ because Niall Horan is just that daring.

There’s a lack of an entourage and security smiles at him from the outside and Zayn recognizes Paddy instantly from the stock footage across Google – the same wide-shouldered, bulky man who trained Liam at the age of fifteen and swooped him into a hug after the Olympics and laughed with him through grainy training footage down at Hyde Park.  There’s a small massage table and still-chilled champagne bottles and Liam slumped on a wooden bench with Paddy pressing the ice bag to his bruised shoulder.

“Be good,” Paddy warns after a beat, ruffling Liam’s damp hair and grinning at Zayn as he nudges by and out of the room.  “He’s still sore – go easy on him.”

Zayn swallows, leaning against the closed door and Liam looks up with a half-smile that never really catches when he tries to move stiff muscles.

His bare chest has a thin coat of still-drying sweat and he’s switched from nylon shorts to baggy sweats with bare feet and starkly colored marks from the ropes, from the assaults matching the ink up his forearms.  He’s got one of those fluffy hotel towels hanging limply from his neck and toes wiggling over the tense carpet and Zayn’s certain he’s never seen something quite as hypnotic as this broken side of Liam.

Liam wriggles a few fingers at him like his voice isn’t quite working and his mouth curves a little when Zayn falters forward.  It’s embarrassing how easily he becomes the victim, how he’s stammering and stuttering and never really certain how to touch Liam but he does.

He slides into Liam’s lap and knocks away the ice bag to soothe the muscles with his fingers and Liam’s arms circle his waist for support rather than encouragement.

“I don’t really remember the press room after the fight,” Liam mentions between their stares and curious hands and hidden smiles, “They asked loads of questions about you, though.  Didn’t quite know what to say.”

“Say whatever,” Zayn mumbles into his hair with dull nails scraping up his neck, “Doesn’t really matter.  S’cool.”

Liam laughs into his chest with fingers relearning the shape of Zayn’s hips.

“Didn’t really know what to call you, y’know.  Like if I should say he’s my mate or my lover – “

Zayn groans at the term but it sounds so awkwardly affectionate that he bites at Liam’s earlobe to distract his mind from it.

“ – or my boyfriend but I didn’t think you’d like that name much so I,” Liam hums with still uncontrolled breaths like he’s still between the ropes, still buried in the gauntlet.

“You can call me Zayn,” he replies like the song and thinks of using his fingers to ink a few other Paul Simon lyrics to Liam’s skin later, “Or just yours.”

“Mine,” Liam breathes and it’s a little too fond, a lot happy and Zayn forgets how to run from such things.

Instead, he kisses Liam quiet and wonders if he can taste the smoke still between Zayn’s lips.  He eases a finger over broken skin and kisses reddened knuckles like Liam does before every fight.  He shoves their foreheads together and they talk about comic books and their favorite science fiction films and Liam’s sixteenth birthday, when no one showed up and Zayn just wants to – he wishes to steal away all of Liam’s worst memories.

“D’ya watch loads of _Rocky_ growing up?” Zayn teases with Liam’s teeth working over his exposed collarbone, with his fingers tickled by the coarse hairs on the nape of Liam’s neck.

Liam looks buzzed and abashed before he smiles and answers, “No, but a lot of _Action Man_.  I wanted to be fantastic at saving the day like Will Smith in all of those action films.”

Zayn smiles into another kiss and licks an _‘oh babe, you’re so much better’_ that he’s been trying to hide but it’s razor-sharp at the back of his throat and he succumbs to Liam’s wandering hands in its place.

The kisses Liam flutters across his neck feel like warm summer rains down his skin and it’s half-poetic and one-fourth detrimental and the kind of mystery he can’t escape.

“I’m all sweaty and smelly,” Liam giggles over Zayn’s swollen lips but takes to sliding his fingers under Zayn’s shirt, shifting them over his ribs and thumbing over red lips with a pair of matching wings.

“Shut it,” Zayn admonishes because the scent is musky and heady and there’s subtle hints of a peppermint body wash under the drunken aroma of muscled boy that he sort of loves.

He ignores the Twitter notifications from Harry –

_Did you lot see my new bro @Real_Liam_Payne smash his match?? Well done lad. @zaynmalik is probably happy xx H_

– and plays unaffected when Liam sneaks a few fingers between his jeans and waistband to lick the sweat off of that stretched neck and marking up Liam’s chest with matching bruises from his lips this time.

He’s dizzy and won’t admit it, not now, but this sensation down in his bones is better than those flings between Bradford and London under a summer sunset.  It’s immediate – the realization and the need and the _sudden-impact_ – and he can’t shove it away so he eases down onto his knees and mouths over Liam’s erection caught behind the soft cotton.

Liam keens and spreads his legs with a calm hand in Zayn’s hair while the spare one grabs onto the bench for support.  Zayn smiles around the covered head, palms himself to chase the excitement, before pinching a thigh until Liam nudges his hips up.

He drags the joggers to Liam’s ankles and he’s bare underneath, the skin around the shaft too – Liam blushes _hard_ and smiles into his shoulder with crinkled eyes – when Zayn thumbs back the extra skin to lick around the head.  It’s salty, bitter and the right kind of silky texture that sticks to Zayn’s tongue.  He laps away the precome and curls careful fingers around the root before slurping downward.

Liam’s hips stutter unintentionally and his fingers scratch painfully at Zayn’s scalp but he refuses to complain.  Instead, he loosens the muscles of his throat and sinks a little lower until his swollen lips kiss at his loose fist.  He hollows his cheeks for the effect it draws out, licks the underside in a languid motion that drives Liam mad.  He stretches his lips into a smile, swallows the fat drops that keep leaking out and it’s like a long sip of lemonade halfway through May – _refreshing_.

A foot kicks out when Zayn pulls away his hand, catches the head in his throat and Liam’s groan echoes louder than the James Blunt in the background.  He builds momentum with practiced pressure and shamelessly teaches his throat to expand for the width, the thick vein on the underside until Liam’s whimpering and curling over him.

“Christ, you little shit,” Liam laughs breathlessly, pushing the fringe out of Zayn’s eyes and watching with dark eyes.

Zayn looks up through glassy eyes and pulls off loudly, sloppily until his lips are shiny with saliva and hints of Liam on them.  He sniffs, clears his throat while tightening his fist around Liam until his head lobs back.

Thighs tremble around his head when he goes back down, lips scratching his bare pelvis.  He licks around the head to chase the flavor and splits the slit with his tongue.  He strokes the inside of Liam’s thigh until he understands, drops his hands away to stroke himself and Liam’s so tentative about the next part.

He just rolls his hips slowly to test the waters and Zayn pinches his calf, groans until the noise sends a shiver across Liam’s hand and he thrusts up.  He finds a gentle rhythm like he does on early mornings between cool sheets, fucking into Zayn’s throat until Zayn is a little lightheaded and desperate.

The fingers on the back of his head guide him downward and he doesn’t beg Liam off.  He swallows, lets thick trails of gloss slide down his chin and blinks up at Liam with intent.

“Beautiful,” Liam groans, shaking with a stammer to his motions, “I don’t know how you – fuck, you’re _incredible_.”

It’s wrapped in a tight armor of unabashed arousal but, just below the exterior, Zayn can hear the subtle sparks of something else.

Something amorous.  Something that sounds a lot like –

Zayn shivers, pulls off to suck around the head and closes his eyes to avoid the way Liam looks down at him like he’s awed.

He knocks Liam back some without loosening the hold he has on his cock, slacking his jaw so Liam thrusts back in and he presses a wet thumb to Liam’s hole just to see those eyelashes flutter.  He’s gentle, patient and Liam groans into his knuckles and spreads his legs and relaxes into the pressure until Zayn slides in.

“Fuck, you could,” Liam mumbles against his forearm, sinking up into Zayn’s mouth before pushing back against another finger that Zayn sneaks in between rough breaths.  “You could just – “

“You could ride me,” Zayn whispers around the wet head, flicking his tongue at the foreskin, sucking away opaque drops.  “Or on your knees, babe, you’d look so good.  Could you handle it?”

Liam nods, frantic fingers in Zayn’s hair, hips twisting for the heat and moving counterclockwise for the curve of a finger.

“You think so?”

“Fuck off Zayn,” Liam laughs with a quake, arching his spine when Zayn sinks down and shoves in.  “I’d do anything for you.”

Zayn works a little harder to mute the words in his head but they’re so loud, so haunting.  It’s a voice in his mind and music he doesn’t know and he’s always hated little promises like that, the ones you can’t keep.

But, in these stupid clouds, he thinks Liam would try to.

Maybe, he would.

Liam comes with a whimper, with a head thudding against the bench, with his thighs around Zayn’s head and his hole clenching around three fingers.  With his toes curling and Zayn’s name sounding like a song across his tongue and Zayn loses coordination to match him with his fingers stroking him lightly through his own orgasm.

They last thirty seconds with labored breaths and wide eyes before Liam rights himself to drag Zayn back into his lap.  Zayn snickers against his lips and lets Liam lick the taste of his own come off of Zayn’s tongue.  It’s a little sour but saccharine from the flavored water Liam was drinking just after the match and their noses brush when they can’t think of the right words to add to their accelerated breaths.

“Let me show you the city,” Liam pleads between kisses, petting a tender hand over the damp spot across Zayn’s jeans with a smile, “just you and me, babe.”

Zayn rolls his eyes because the thought of _‘you and me’_ has to be stolen from some literary work or cheesy film but it sounds incredible, renewed when mixed with Liam’s fucked out voice.

He concedes with a quiet whine and lets Liam ease away to ring up the car services, plead with Paddy for privacy, and skips the post-match shower to lift Zayn up with his hands cupping his arse and he strains his muscles to kiss Zayn against the vanity in the corner.

 

|+|

 

After midnight, they walk the streets of London with stupid grins and shoulders brushing every few steps.  There’s a brilliant chill to the air that plays as an excuse for them to stay close and the city lights in the background flicker wide and bright like a pair of eyes.  Zayn steals Liam’s beanie and shoves his snapback of Liam’s mussed hair and they walk blocks with their knuckles and fingers bumping and _almost_ , he thinks –

Almost feels so perfect for them.

They find an all-night dim sum restaurant and order jasmine tea and Zayn lies in astonishment at the way the neon Cantonese signs in the window smear a kaleidoscope across Liam’s tan skin.

Instead of telling him, they duel with chopsticks like they’re light sabers before crowding closer without the world watching them.  Liam takes to using his fingers to feed Zayn hot dumplings, handfuls of rice while Zayn licks away the salty sauce at the corner of Liam’s mouth.  It’s playful smiles that hide their tangled fingers under the table and he thinks he loses a heartbeat or two when Liam uses his thumb to scratch an _‘LP’_ to the back of Zayn’s hand – and _yours_ , he remembers with a reverent smile he can’t take back.

They stop for frozen sorbet and Zayn lets out an amused sigh when Liam eats his with a plastic fork instead of a spoon.  They trade chocolate flavors and combine cold textures with tongues in each other’s mouths.  The street lamps stamp out their path along broken sidewalks and Zayn’s a little in love with Liam’s fingers twisted around his, even if only a few people on the streets recognize them.

Even if it steals a little bit of his anonymity because, next to Liam, he always feels like _someone_.

 

|+|

 

And he wonders how long that thought will terrify him.

 

|+|

 

The shear curtains that cover the too large bedroom windows of Liam’s London flat create a beautiful smokescreen of the night’s skyline but are thin enough that the bare sun spreads a warm touch across his naked spine at the sweetest hour of the morning.  The almost-warm sheets twist around him but he’s missing a pair of arms and bare toes wriggling against his calf and the low grunts from the foot of the bed pull his attention so easily.

He keeps getting small glimpses of a concentrated Liam on the floor doing his morning workout with sweat down his bare chest and floppy hair and stubble kissing all along his jaw.  He’s counting out sit-ups in this husky, morning voice that’s low and thick with bass like rhythm and blues music.  Zayn chews on his bottom lip, props himself on his elbows for a better view and cocks his legs apart – a little deliberately for the way Liam loses his breath and groans – and Loki, Liam’s young Husky with wide ocean eyes and an immediate affection for Zayn, keeps whimpering from the other side of the door.

“You’re manic,” Liam teases him breathily from the floor, sprawled across the hardwoods in a pair of sweats.  “I’m not ready for you.”

Zayn grins, scratches through his messy hair and kicks the sheets away with Liam’s Captain America boxers loose around his waist.  He tips his head back for a smirk Liam doesn’t look away from and winks because Liam _can’t_.

“How am I supposed to develop better techniques and complete control over my muscles with you looking like this?” Liam asks while crawling up the bed and morning kisses have never tasted this amazing – with the right hint of mint from toothpaste and acid from black tea and something vaguely _Liam_ – but he won’t concede to that notion with Liam’s hands on his hips.

“I can teach you some things,” Zayn promises against his lips, “Been reading up on _muscle development_ – “

“You’re ridiculous,” Liam interrupts but wrinkles his brow like he’s concentrating while Zayn rocks his hips upward to distract him.  “Have you really?”

Zayn feels awkward and abashed with stained cheeks, a small nod, spreading his legs a little further until Liam’s hips jerk against him.

He bites at his lip, chews away skin before replying, “I wanted to impress you, I s’ppose.  Stupid shit like that, y’know.”

Liam snorts, tongues his lips apart and kisses all of the other obscenely textbook words Zayn has waiting in his throat until they mumble each other’s names in a broken language.

The usual stream of Kendrick Lamar in the dim sunrise is interrupted by a symphony of something Zayn doesn’t recognize but he immediately sinks into the lyrics and the _‘I was always late; you never afraid that we could be falling’_ that drips from the surround sound.  It tangles around him like comfy cotton jumpers.  Liam grins into a few kisses, mouthing out _‘all of our friends would say that maybe we should wait but they can’t see what’s coming’_ with the spare licks he spreads down Zayn’s neck and Zayn relaxes with hands down his spine and knees bracketing his hips.

“Stay,” Liam begs with a stealthy tongue and fingers in the dip of his back.  “Just stay here forever, man.  You know you want to.”

Zayn giggles, trembles with teeth over his collarbone and lips swearing to add more marks across his throat.  He sighs quietly, rutting his hips and undercover touches over Liam’s shoulder blades knock his rhythm off.

“Can’t,” Zayn breathes between kisses, adding enough pressure to bruise, “I’ve got a proper job and – “

Liam groans, tilting Zayn’s jaw to work flickering strokes of a tongue underneath.  “Bullshit.”

“I’ve got friends,” Zayn adds, scratching down Liam’s back.

“They can have the spare rooms,” Liam mumbles across an Adam’s apple, down into the hollows, “I’ve never used them for anything anyways.  Of course, Andy might be a bit stroppy about not having a studio space to record his shitty acoustic sets.”

“He strums?” Zayn asks underneath a _‘you are the anchor that holds me’_ while restraining a moan unsettled by Liam’s fingers digging into his hips.

Liam laughs across the Arabic, thumbs find the empty spaces where bones don’t exist.  “He pretends.”

Zayn grins into the shadows behind Liam’s ear, cups a palm over the nape of his neck to keep him steady.

“Loki hates me,” Zayn groans, shifting his hips and spreading Liam’s knees for the right amount of friction.

“He does not.”

“Your mum wouldn’t approve of us sharing communal space this early,” Zayn whispers, biting at Liam’s jaw and the rough stubble along his skin scratches against the surface of Zayn’s tongue.

“I don’t even know what that means, you donut,” Liam snickers with a scrunched nose and he almost misses the crinkled eyes when Liam buries his face between neck and shoulder.

He strokes over sore muscles and reflexive tendons to find all of his favorite spots – like the soft space between biceps and forearms and the perfect line of ribs when Liam stretches for more kisses – before knocking their hips and outlining Liam’s throbbing cock with tricky fingers.  Liam groans into his ear, something awfully obscene and desperate, before grinding into a soft palm and breathing out _‘I never knew that there was someone to make me come alive’_ to Zayn’s puckered lips.

“Roll over babe and let me show you something,” Liam grins with impatient fingers tapping at his hip.

Zayn arches an eyebrow but loses the war when his instincts obey and he presses a pink cheek into the fluffy pillows with the sheets under his waist.  He swallows, bites sharply at his lip to stop the tremors when Liam presses a messy row of kisses down his spine and thumbs spread him open for a –

 _Oh_.

He can feel Liam’s smile pressed to the line above his arse, gentle licks over the dimples in his skin.  Fingers soothe over the back of his thighs, a hand wrapping around his hip to drag him up on to his knees and he naturally arches for Liam.

“Good boy,” Liam coos, flexing a tongue just above his hole and anticipation squeezes his fingers into the cold linen.

There’s a noise building in his chest, up his throat, and he refuses to beg when Liam teases around his thighs, across each cheek, breathes damp air over Zayn’s hole.  But his knees shift apart and his toes wiggle and Liam’s hands keep mapping out all of the goosebumps that threaten to give away all of his secrets.

“Leeyum,” he mumbles into the cotton, burying his face but his skin flushes and goes hot and sweat trickles down the bowed line of his back.

“Y’can say it, y’know,” Liam says in this husky voice that’s caramel and hot coffee and so dark.

Zayn tugs fingers through his hair instead, weakens to his desire and spreads a little further for him.

“Quite naughty,” Liam teases, smacking a rough hand to one cheek, kissing away the red print.

“Shut it,” Zayn laughs but steals a glance over his shoulder to watch Liam smile against his hip and lick playfully at the fresh ink there.

His forearms shake from the exertion and he topples forward with his shoulders to the mattress when Liam tenses a tiny kiss to his hole.  His breath hitches at stubble scratching the inside of his thigh and he tries to focus on _‘because I never knew a home until I found your hands’_ but it melts over him in this soft cocoon.

He growls something into the sheets when Liam traces tiny shapes over his thighs, up the sharp line of his tailbone, across his spine with fingers shifting against the clenched muscles until he relaxes.  His muscles move in opposite directions, straining, and he chokes on a breath when Liam whispers _‘I could get you loud for all of the neighbors, babe, there’s so many on this floor.’_

Zayn keens into the pillow, trying to suffocate himself, and Liam’s insanely casual with his kisses now, fingers spreading Zayn open before he chuckles against Zayn’s skin and lowers his mouth.

He can’t help the way his cock swings between his legs, twitches up to leave a shiny stain to his belly when Liam flicks out his tongue and teases away from his skin.  He fists the sheets, stretches farther and the rush of endorphins through his blood stream when Liam presses his mouth down nearly shatters him.

Liam licks around his hole, the tip stretching him open, drags teeth up and down his cheeks.  His fingers tighten around Zayn’s thighs to haul him back and he buries himself between all of the welcoming skin.  He teases Zayn open with a hot mouth, fingers leaving behind bruises and encourages Zayn’s whines with a husky baritone.

His lips shape the tight skin just behind Zayn’s balls, chapped mouth going wet when he adds a little more saliva that drips down taut flesh.  He catches it with the tip of his tongue and spreads it over Zayn’s hole until he feels dizzy.  And then, with a small roll over the surface, he shoves in and Zayn forgets what breathing is.

He absentmindedly reaches back, just to tickle fingers into Liam’s hair, to hold him steady but Liam’s masterful at this – the licking Zayn wide, the tongue sliding past the rim, the taunting finger that circles the stretched skin.  He swallows something loud and shakes against the mattress until Liam pulls back to rub a thumb across slick, slick skin.

Zayn’s skin goes raw and pink from Liam’s stubble.  He aches for the right angle to grab his cock and stroke off to the way Liam moans into his skin, whispers gentle reminders over his hole before tonguing him loose again.  He bites into his lip until its sore, grunts unintelligible lines of poetry into the cotton and, daringly, shifts his hips back to meet Liam’s mouth.

“Come just like this,” Liam heaves, licking away all of the wetness from his lips, pressing a finger in just for the pitchy whines Zayn releases.  He twists, corkscrews and adds a tongue to massage the rim and Zayn gnaws at the sheets for comfort.

“Like this babe,” he adds with a thick accent, “Just me eating you out.  Like it gets you off to know I’m getting you ready for my dick.  C’mon, babe, get off on knowing how wet I’ve got you.  How open you are.  Look at you.”

His skin turns a sharp red and he clenches his eyes shut, tightens his jaw to mute the sounds but they come out in desperate pants he can’t corral.  He rubs off on Liam’s tongue and his cock blurts out stringy drops of precome and he tries to grind down into the mattress but Liam hauls him back to his knees, back against an open mouth to spreads warm kisses to match _‘I’d give everything up for your touch’_ in the background, just stupid white noise for him now.

The air down his chest, filling his lungs is dusty and supernova-like and his cock won’t stop twitching when Liam slides a little deeper.  He rocks back instead of thinking, stretches a breath up his throat while Liam bites an _SOS_ across his cheeks and adds another finger to silence Zayn’s impatience.

Liam gets a little sloppier with a giggle, slicking Zayn open with just his tongue like he’s some cheap thrill, some easy girl begging for an _Olympic gold medalists_ cock –

And Zayn shivers at all of the spit sliding down his skin, the fluttered sensation his hole provides, the dirty ache up his spine like he’d be just that _simple_ for Liam.

Just that willing.

There’s a thick layer of sweat across his back from the unbearable sun outside and the way Liam keeps going even though his jaw must be sore, his lips swollen, and he twists uncomfortably to reach for his cock when Liam grunts _‘go ‘head, babe, let me see how bad it is.’_

It’s an electric shock and too many variables split his cells and his fingers go sticky-wet the instant they brush over the head.  He knows it won’t last – not with Liam fucking him open, not with the pleased noises he’s making behind Zayn – but he trembles through slow strokes for the delight.  He listens to his rough, uneven breathing and feels the raw sensation from his knees digging into the mattress.

He’s inconsolable when Liam sneaks a few fingers up the vein on the underside, thrusts his tongue a little quicker, and Zayn comes with a long whimper that echoes in the sheets rather than against the walls.  Liam’s fingers chase the trembles up his cock, catch flicks of wetness – and Zayn can’t stop shaking – and spreads it over Zayn’s cock before sliding it back to his hole.

“Fucking beautiful,” Liam groans, knocks Zayn off his knees and Zayn’s still trying to reside his breathing to his lungs when Liam rubs the thick line of his cock between his cheeks and nuts off across his lower back after a few slick strokes.

They’re breathless and glowing beneath the fogged up sun from the curtains.  Zayn smiles into Liam’s shoulder while Liam strokes messy fingers over his ribs, down his hip.  They cuddle up without speaking, tangling their legs and grin with sleepy eyes.

“You’ll stay, right?” Liam asks, nosing Zayn’s cheek and sticky fingers spell out a _‘please’_ Zayn can’t resist.

He looks away, tries to exhale out all of the happiness that’s clouding up his blood.  He kisses along Liam’s hairline and doesn’t answer.

Liam doesn’t quite shift away and they won’t quite discuss it – _not yet_ – but, when Liam’s sated, he whispers _‘as long as I can’_ into Liam’s hair.  He feels arms tighten around his waist like a _‘thank you’_ but neither of them has the strength to argue their silent exchange.

 

|+|

 

In early May, he misses Liam’s next fight to meet an impatient Louis at some dive pub near the center of London.

He quickly tweets a _‘much love to @Real_Liam_Payne !! You’re gonna be amazing tonite aha’_ and leaves behind his Obey snapback and a hot cup of his favorite coffee on Liam’s nightstand that morning and almost regrets letting Niall borrow one of his Oxfords to meet up with Josh because Niall never cleans the stains from some twitchy boy’s come afterwards.  But he begs off a late shift at the bookshop and Michael concedes for an autograph and Liam, unknowingly, agreeing to get him tickets to the next Arcade Fire concert.

“You’re late,” Louis says with a scowl and a shot of vodka and lime juice shoved at Zayn when he sits down, “ _again_.”

Zayn laughs with a careless shrug, sliding out of his leather jacket and ruffling Louis’ immoveable hair.

“You’re impatient,” he warns with a grin and he downs the shot before Louis can argue.

Louis nods but there’s something weak, unlike him behind those crystalline blue eyes.  It’s somewhat intimidating, shards of vulnerability that he rarely sees in Louis and he quickly reaches across the table for Louis’ hand while ordering up a few more shots.

He watches Louis laugh something distinctively foreign, fixing his collar and blinking away from Zayn.  Zayn can see through his defenses but waits, under cheap lighting and a dozen flatscreens across the pub play the fight on a loop.  There’s a rattle of Bon Jovi in the background, loud chatter on all sides but Zayn leans in to focus on Louis, the slow tip of his chin to hide his eyes.

“He’s thinking about giving me back the ring,” Louis admits when everything is too loud, too fast.  He chuckles like the burn is ineffective but steals the cigarette from behind Zayn’s ear and takes his first drag before Zayn notices the red-rim of his eyes.

“Tommo, I – “

“I overheard him chatting away to Gem about it.  The stupid fucker didn’t even know I was home from that silly interview down at the television station,” Louis says incredibly casual, angling his head back to exhale the smoke.  He takes another long drag like a hit off a joint, holding in the bluish clouds, the fog mixing with his words when he adds, “S’not like we didn’t see it coming, right?”

Zayn drags his chair closer, nudges their shoulders together and he can’t help thinking about nights leaning over their counter under dim lighting, sharing cold pizza with Louis while Harry pined from across the room like Louis was his figurative representation of some beautiful Shakespeare character.

“He’s thinking about traveling after university.  Seeing parts of the world,” Louis sighs, their knuckles brushing over shots and the cigarette traded between their fingers.  “You can’t exactly do that when you’ve adopted some kid from _Malaysia_ – “

“Ghana,” Zayn corrects and waits for that little twitch at the corner of Louis’ mouth to breathe out the smoke.  “You’d make a brilliant father.”

“I would,” Louis announces and it’s completely devoid of that smugness Zayn expects.  No, it’s something wondrously delighted.

Louis shifts and lowers his head to Zayn’s shoulder to hide everything else.  He scratches at the back of Zayn’s hand, knocks the ash off the cigarette and strengthens his muscles to dull the tremors.

He sniffs at the air, pleads for tequila instead of vodka, before adding, “I’ve done so good at showing everyone I can make it out here.  I’m amazing at not giving a fuck – “

“Amazing,” Zayn repeats, quietly with a smile.

“ – and all I keep thinking is I don’t know what to do without that idiot and those ridiculous curls,” he finishes, straining his throat to shove out the words.

Zayn nudges his chin to Louis’ temple, brushes his nose into stiff hair to mumble, “Maybe you heard wrong?”

“Maybe you’re an idiot,” Louis groans, tipping his eyes up and Zayn shoots him a scowl that sets white teeth to Louis’ bottom lip.  He turns his eyes downward but knocks their feet under the table and spares Zayn the first sip of premium tequila before whispering, “It’s a really nice house he’s picked out.  Massive backyard for a dog.  Extra rooms.”

Zayn hums his approval, scratching fingers just beneath the thick hair at the nape of his neck.  The televisions echo Liam’s name and something heavy flutters over his chest when the other guy swings mercilessly at Liam’s huddled form.  He gnaws a corner of his lip while Liam’s opponent counters all of his best jabs with stinging hooks.

Louis tips the chilled shot glass to his lips with curious blue eyes.  He clears his throat to steal some of Zayn’s attention.  “What’s the one thing you think you couldn’t live without?”

“You,” Zayn replies automatically, shifting a crooked grin over his lips when a heavy blush beats against Louis’ cheeks.

“Quite obliviously,” Louis retorts, knocking an elbow to Zayn’s ribs.  He waggles his eyebrows at the screen and tips his glass before adding, “Anything else?”

Zayn plays coy without a second thought but drags his eyes over one of the twenty televisions to find Liam toweling his face off between rounds, skin already bruised, stretching his lips around the mouthguard for a stupid grin just for the cameras and, Zayn hopes, a little something more just for him.

“S’okay,” Louis whispers with fingers curled around Zayn’s elbow and a chin on his shoulder, “I reckon we’ve all got a thing or two in this world that we’re mildly attached to.”

Zayn huffs a breath, lights another cigarette and knocks Louis away with a twitchy smile.  He grumbles an _‘s’not what you think’_ and avoids Louis eyes and the frankly incredulous look he shoots him just to focus on the neat row of empty shot glasses they’re accumulating.

“Can I sing _‘A Whole New World’_ at your wedding, dude?” Louis teases with arms thrown around Zayn’s neck and Zayn writhes and wiggles and fights dirty just to get away but they’re still a little tangled with glasses knocked over when the waitress shoots an eyebrow up at them.

“Prick,” Zayn laughs into Louis’ hair with a hand up his shirt.

“You’re an absolute bore and no fun when you’re not high,” Louis beams back, tugging at the sticky ends of Zayn’s hair and they spill drops of tequila from the last shot over each other’s tongues while passing the cigarette back and forth.

Zayn knocks their elbows, watches the edge of the city and its array of Technicolor lights from the window with this inescapably buoyant feeling circulating through his blood –

 _Happy_ , he thinks and Louis grins at him like he already knows.  And, suddenly, he feels the need to associate Liam with an _ever after_ and an epilogue and he’s a little more than just a sentence or a paragraph in Zayn’s life.

He’s an entire series, devoted and dedicated with a self-penned introduction.

Zayn thinks, in that moment, it makes perfect sense for his world to tilt in the complete opposite direction.  His fingers still on Louis’ neck – no, they stutter and scratch until Louis jerks away – and something cold chases his blood and he hates those clichéd sayings about your heart stopping when something inevitably tragic happens but –

“Zayn,” Louis starts but his voice is drowned out by the echoing _‘the Payno is down!  He’s knocked out and not moving!’_ from the announcer and he’s never really realized how much of a coveted flicker of hope that stupid boy with the crinkly eyes, dumb grin, bruised knuckles was until he hears the synchronized gasps across the pub and a few of shed tears seconds afterwards.

“He’s fine,” Zayn says under his breath, under this awful weight on his chest that he can’t shake.

Fingers curl around his wrist, a thumb to his erratic pulse point, and he doesn’t comprehend the shaking until he looks down at his own hand across the glossy wood table.

He blinks at the dozens of images of Liam still on the mat, trainers shaking him awake, the crumpled boy who’s nothing but sunshine and ridiculous smiles and cheesy jokes that no one ever gets.  No one but Zayn and the silly overhead stereo keeps repeating _‘you will cry and I will cry ‘cause all the love’s alive tonight’_ and he thinks this feeling inside of him was accidental.  It wasn’t supposed to happen and his lungs shake awake for his next breath before he thinks –

No, he can’t think anymore.

 

|+|

 

His mum always lights citrus lavender candles when something horrible happens.  It’s supposed to be calming or sleep-inducing or _something_ and he thinks of that when all he can smell is sterile, toxically clean hospital linen.  And there’s several machines that haunt him with their noises and he doesn’t understand any of them.  The temperature is that mild degree between cold and freezing and the moon is only half-lit in the dark, dark London sky, leaving the room a wreckage of shadows and uninviting light.

The minimal staff sneaks him in, with the aid of security and a few kind words from Paddy, a little before midnight and give him the room to himself while watching from afar.  There’s a fluorescent light in the corner that strips away the rest of the color from Liam’s skin and gloss from the sweat across his forehead reflects the ugly glow.  The glaring lights from the machines taunt him and all he can focus on – and he’s not sure he’s doing _that_ but he’s trying – is the little twitch Liam’s fingers give over the scratchy hospital blanket as he dreams.

He leans over the railing in the steely chair from the nurse’s station that Phoebe, a young brunette intern with wide eyes and a tender spot for British athletes, drug in for him.  He chews on his thumbnail for minutes, blinking down at the ID bracelet and the tubes from the IV.  There’s a sharp wound across the corner of Liam’s mouth and a deep bruise on one cheek and a few fresh sutures in one eyebrow from where he fell a second time leaving the arena and he wants to touch every little mark until they fade away and make room for the bruises his lips could make.

Instead, he skims fingers over the bluish mark high on Liam’s cheek and stammers a breath when Liam groans, grins with his eyes closed and reopening the wound of his lip when it stretches.

Zayn thumbs away the blood while Liam hisses and struggle to turn on the bed and those earthy eyes are a deep shade of sepia under the cloud of shadows hanging in the room.

Liam tries to speak but his voice drags in this deep, deep garble that’s matched by a wrinkled brow and Zayn presses two fingers to his lips to silence him until Liam scowls and frowns simultaneously.  It knocks a laugh from Zayn’s constrained lungs, his thumb brushing up to push the fringe from Liam’s forehead and his skin is blistering hot but still so welcoming.

Zayn thinks about kissing him, licking away the shallow blood and tonguing out a hurricane of phrases he remembers reading from Frost or Bronte but none of them would taste ample enough.

Not for this boy with wide eyes that almost tear the stitches and pale pink lips and white teeth when he smiles too hard.

Liam tangles a laugh on his tongue that’s soft, soft and nothing like Zayn remembers.  He tucks his chin until Zayn can’t see his eyes and looks up through his lashes like an _‘I’m sorry’_ and _‘I hope I didn’t scare you’_ that Zayn can’t bear so he flicks his nose, grins back.  He forgoes restrictions and proper bed rest and all of the other protocol to crawl over the plastic railing and into the shallow hollow Liam leaves for him on the sheets.

He stretches an arm around slumped shoulders, drags his mouth over Liam’s hairline when he whines for a kiss and wants to crawl beneath the linen to tangle their legs together but doesn’t.

Liam breathes against his collarbone, struggles to lift a hand but manages it over Zayn’s hip and Zayn thinks that’s a smile pressed to his throat but can’t be bothered with figuring out all of the small details.

“Harry is right pissed with you,” Zayn says between their uncoordinated breaths, twisting his fingers through Liam’s hair, “and Niall swears he’s not speaking to you for at least a month for scaring him like that.  I’m sure Josh will fix that.”

Liam wheezes a laugh or a giggle or just a noise into the hollow under his jaw and scratches a _thank you_ to his wrist.

“I read your chart and – “

“Badman,” Liam huffs over his Adam’s apple and the scratchy kiss that follows the words sends an appeasing chill across Zayn’s spine.

“ – and the doctors say it’s just a concussion.  No direct brain damage.  Some bruising.  Just a little monitoring and pain medications and you’ll be free to go.  Under strict supervision.”

The sting of Liam’s scruff rakes up his neck before he whispers _‘you made that last part up’_ and his voice is still so heavy from the meds but it’s the kind of distraction Zayn needs from Liam’s subtle reactions every time his fingers touch at a new scar.

Liam brushes his nose over Zayn’s jaw and _madness_ is what it is because Liam’s driving him insane when he should be scolding him.  He should be reprimanding him with a tense voice and a stiff jaw and a shaking finger but, instead, he curls around him until he thinks he can keep Liam safe for a fortnight –

Or for a lifetime, but he’s not ready for those type of thoughts.

But maybe.

They stay quiet and Zayn flips on one of those early Tim Burton _Batman_ films with Liam’s soft breathing barreling down on his collarbones.  He thinks Liam’s asleep or drifting on an ocean until the other boy groans roughly, tightens his fingers in Zayn’s shirt and pulls back to blink up.

“Need to ring up Paddy in the morning,” he says in this cracked voice that Zayn never wants to remember, “If I can shake this in a few days, maybe I can restart my training for that tournament in Greece in the summer.  Mark has been planning this for almost a year, since the Olympics, and I’m set to meet that young German kid in the first round.  Think I can take him.”

In a reflective way, he thinks his reaction should be normal.  His muscles tighten and his lungs contract rather than expand and he pulls further away to glare at Liam.  His lips twitch before his tongue can carry words while Liam tilts his head curiously and Zayn can’t look at him for thirty whole seconds.

“You _can’t_ ,” he says instead of something logical or thought-provoking, “You can’t go back.  You just – you can’t, man.”

“But – “

“ _Leeyum_ ,” Zayn whines in this disturbingly affectionate way that he regrets, “You absolutely _can’t_ , mate.  Do you know what this was like?  For all of them?”

There’s a strong, resistant part of himself that forgets to add the _‘for me’_ because he’s still caught on the feed on every news station of Liam lying face-down across the canvas.

Liam frowns, pokes trembling fingers to Zayn’s ribs.  “I’m gonna.  I’ve got something to prove.”

Zayn scoffs, unintentionally, and pleads away from Liam’s hand to shuffle off the bed.  He presses at the wrinkles in his clothes and keeps his back to Liam and hides the tremors in his hands.

“You’re daft.”

“Zayn,” Liam replies in an almost pleading tone.  He clears the sleep from his throat to add, “This is my life.  S’what I’m good at, man.  You can’t expect – “

“You’re not ready,” Zayn argues, fighting the chill under his skin and the resolution in the back of his mind reminding him Liam is just a footnote, not _‘dedicated to’_ in his life.  His fingers clench into his fists just before he adds, “I don’t want you to.”

The words stretch into breaths, little bleeps from the machines that are terrorizing.  He chances a look over his shoulder at Liam’s slack jaw, his careful eyes and the ache in his chest spreads to all of his limbs.

“I have to,” Liam says slowly with harsh breaths, that little reminder that he’s still broken.  “You’re considered a coward if you just give up.  If you just throw in the towel when something bad happens, man.  I’m not a coward, Zayn.”

He thinks, later on between long drags of smoke and the night air freezing against his skin, his reaction should’ve been a lot milder.  Maybe a casually blank face.  Or a put upon smile.  Not the wide eyes, slight tug of his mouth, deep breaths, twitching jaw that he gives Liam.  It’s not up for interpretation.  His heart, usually so cautiously hidden, sits loud and open on his sleeve and he can’t look away fast enough to miss the apologetic look Liam shoots him.

“Zayn, I’m sorry,” Liam says quickly because realization comes in-between inhales and silence and –

Zayn still thinks he was a coward.  He was shit at regaining his confidence after Madrid, even if he pretends to the rest of the world that leaving the modelling thing behind was just dust under the rug.  Instead, it’s this massive pile in the middle of his life and _regret_ sits heavy on his tongue.

And, even now, he knows walking away from half of a dream was a mistake.

“Zayn, please, babe – “

Zayn laughs in this deep voice that’s blurred with bitterness he can’t quite control.  He sniffs, shrugs on his leather jacket and slips a cigarette between his lips halfway toward the door.

“They say your mum is coming up.  I’m sure she’ll be here soon and Josh, probably Andy will want to visit with you,” he mumbles around the filter, pushing his hair back and refusing to spare Liam another glance.  He’s in the archway, teetering on his steps, trying to breathe, when he whispers, “I’m going for coffee.  Get some rest.”

There’s a discontent noise over the machines and Zayn stops just for the sound of, “But I’d like you here.  To meet me mummy.  I’d like her to meet my – “

Zayn snorts, shakes his head.  He thinks of moonlight and _their corner_ in the bookshop and bits of Batman between their twisted fingers.  “I don’t like titles, remember?” he reminds him and it should sound so much more sincere like _‘titles are a form of possession and we don’t_ own _each other, babe, we can’t_ function _without the other’_ but it’s not and he retreats out the door before Liam can argue in favor of the former.

 

|+|

 

The heavy sky is a ripe shade of purple with harsh fluorescent lights breathing a glow across the bare streets.  There’s a small twenty-four hour coffee shop a few streets over and he’s not expecting the small crowd of press when he slips out of a side door.  He feels out of place with his thick hair messy from his fingers, his leather jacket hanging loose from his shoulders and a cigarette between his lips.

The flashes blind him like stars bursting, fingers reaching to tug him closer, a barrage of questions about Liam – _he’s fine_ – and their relationship – _they don’t have one_ – and he feels suffocated until Paddy shoves between all of the shouts and his stumbling feet.  He knocks a few cameras back, barks with the kind of authority Zayn associates with a drill sergeant, and tugs Zayn out of the fog down a side street.

They don’t talk as they walk.  Paddy’s quiet like all of Zayn’s best moments with Harry, when the air is still and the silence feels like a warm blanket.  There’s half a scowl on his face from the reporters who dared to shove back but he fixes Zayn’s collar, walks tall next to him like a shield from everything, and pays for Zayn’s coffee with a small smile and a nod.  Zayn grins back, buys a bag of chocolate donuts because Liam’s a helpless idiot for them and uses his spare change to upgrade Paddy’s espresso size.  Paddy strides ahead of him on the way back to let Zayn smoke but keeps giving him little looks over his wide, wide shoulders and Zayn is overcome with –

It’s in between the hazy smoke that does little to calm his nerves but heats his chest like mid-July breezes: Paddy is with him because of _Liam_.  Because, as daft as it sounds, he wants what’s best for Liam and Zayn has never, never been much of an antidote.  Not on purpose, at least.

The backdraft of almost-summer air sweeps around them, swirling flicks of fringe over Zayn’s eyes and he thinks of a song Niall used to blare through their flat.  He remembers penciling _‘don’t you ever want to be brave? It seems that we feel the same way’_ to an old sketchbook with Niall playing air guitar somewhere in the background.

“It’s Zayn!”

He cringes at the assault of cameras that rush them but Paddy’s called ahead and there’s a few more security creating a divide as Paddy sneaks him in through the emergency door with a grin.  He nudges Zayn towards the lifts and crowds him close to the doors to whisper _‘I’m not supposed to tell you but that boy is madly in love with you and that’s never happened.  Not with the rest of them.  And he’s terrified about it, mate, so you’re not alone’_ before leading Zayn inside alone.

 

|+|

 

Zayn sips his coffee a little too fast, burns his tongue, and can’t stop repeating _‘that boy is madly in love with you and that’s never happened’_ until the lift stops on his floor.

Until he remembers _‘once you feel love, you’ll taste the pain’_ and he forgets how to walk toward the light rather than away from it.

 

|+|

 

Andy and Josh are already in the room with a tiny woman who has fair blonde hair, crinkly eyes like Liam, and the kind of smile that probably warms winter mornings.  They’re crowded around Liam, laughing, keeping him safe and Zayn can’t quite take those few steps into the room so he hangs back at the nurse’s station and watches from afar.

He smiles into his coffee when Liam wheezes through giggles and his mum shoves the oxygen mask to his face with a pout and careful fingers.  They’re a little too loud for three in the morning and the sweet nurse keeps shushing them with this affectionate smile blaring through her put upon scowl.  He bites into his lip when Liam keeps watching the door, even if he can’t see Zayn, and looks away instantly when the shivers in his blood won’t subside.

Because this feeling right in the center of his stomach is anything but love.

It’s _‘if this is an accident, then where’s the horror?’_ and he doesn’t recognize clarity forty yards from him.

“ _So_ ,” Niall grins when he sidles up to Zayn with two steaming cups of tea and a bag of lemon biscuits under his armpit, “Meeting the folks now?  That’s massive for you, right?”

Zayn elbows him hard and wrinkles his face but the disfiguring refuses to hide the tint of his cheeks.

“I’m not going in.”

Niall groans, kicks at Zayn’s foot vengefully.  “But I swear he’s going to propose!  Imagine how beautiful it’ll be with the heart monitor and the sterile sheets, mate.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, sinks his eyes and sips at his coffee.  “Fuck off.”

There’s this inescapable smirk on Niall’s lips, the back of his fingers brushing the heat over Zayn’s cheeks.

“Not how you pictured it, yeah?” he teases while balancing the cardboard cups in one hand.  “I bet you wanted it to be somet’ing like in _Lady and the Tramp_ with plates of spag bol and _‘That’s Amore’_ in the background.”

Zayn scuffs his foots on the freshly shined tiles, sniffs and downs the rest of his coffee without looking at Niall.  It’s not until he bites his lip raw, fingers still shaking that Niall swarms in close to nudge his chin up with narrowed eyes.

“Zayn, don’t you dare – “

Zayn clears his throat roughly, banks left instead of right to avoid that look.

“He’s better than me,” Zayn says in this uncomfortably tranquil voice that he swears doesn’t belong to him.  “He deserves better, Nialler.  Like, he just _does_.  Look at him.”

Niall doesn’t.  He glares at Zayn and all of the guilt lining his throat floods his mouth and numbs his tongue and Niall has never been one for sentiment or overreaction – both traits Louis holds a monopoly on – but there’s a heavy hint of something familiar behind those blue eyes that stills the cold oxygen in Zayn’s blood.

“Malik, you are a complete arse,” Niall tells him with wide blue eyes and the kind of definition behind his tone that is unmistakable, “you’re bloody manic and an absolute idiot if you think that lad doesn’t wholeheartedly love you, with or without your past.”

Niall’s fingers around his wrist squeeze tightly until it feels like dense gravity.  An anchor, honestly.  Something keeping him weighed down and _right here_.

Just a few yards away from one of those storybook kind of romances and _they don’t exist_ , he reminds himself.

 

|+|

 

He stopped believing himself three hours ago, under fluorescent lighting and on hospital sheets and wedged between plastic railing and Liam’s still warm body.

And he knows Niall won’t forgive him after he smiles, pats his shoulder, and walks in the opposite direction towards the lifts.  He won’t forgive himself in the cab back to the small village just outside of Knightsbridge.

He doesn’t sleep, not in his own bed, and watches the replay of the fight _six times_ before he realizes the sting behind his eyes has wet his cheeks and stained his shirt in angry tears.

 

|+|

 

“ _So_ ,” Harry says in this singsong voice that reminds Zayn so much of Niall.  He squeezes down onto the plush couch with Zayn, the late afternoon sun pressing silly polygon shapes through the large windows of the loft with the Artic Monkeys in the background – and Zayn’s been scratching all of Alex Turner’s words into his skin, including the _‘and do you still think love is a laserquest or do you take it all more seriously?_ ’ while purposely not thinking of stupid grins on a perfect boy.

Harry presses a cup of tea into Zayn’s palm and a sloppy smile into his messy hair and stretches an arm around Zayn’s tight shoulders before breathing out, “How long since you last seen him?”

 _Four days and seven hours and too many seconds_ , Zayn thinks automatically but shrugs as a response instead.  He pouts a little when Harry scowls and licks into the ginger tea rather than speaking.

“And his tweets?” Harry inquires with a poorly lifted eyebrow.

Zayn winces, burns his tongue on the heady flavor and _‘watching my fav batmannn wish @zaynmalik was round’_ and _‘zaynnnn is ace’_ are some of his favorites but he hasn’t told anyone that.

 _Not yet_.

He flicks eyes up at Harry’s determined smile, manic green eyes that promise cuddles and shit romantic comedies in a few and he nudges back into Harry’s arm just to breathe again.

“Haven’t seen ‘em,” he lies and Harry calls him on it immediately with pinching fingers, discontent groans that Zayn laughs at and it’s the first real inhale of fresh air he thinks he’s tasted in days.

“He’s out of the hospital today,” Harry whispers, lips brushing Zayn’s cheek.

 _This morning_ , Zayn thinks and the reports are still flooding his news feed and the poorly snapped photos of Liam in a beanie with his head tipped downward, a frown across his lips, skin still so pale and that comfy jumper swallowing up most of his tan skin sits unnervingly in Zayn’s mind.  His bottom lip is still raw from errant teeth and he’s halfway through a fresh pack of Marlboro’s.  There’s an anxious ache just under his skin, jutting out and it’s a warning –

No, it’s a _natural disaster_ right in his face.

He presses a thumb to the soft of Harry’s hip, spares a few sips of tea while the music switches midway into something a little more _Harry Styles_ , with the acoustics and heavy percussion and raw voice of someone unfamiliar.

“Me mum called me,” he says soft into the dead air.  He feels Harry freeze under him and shuts his eyes rather than commenting.  “She’s in the city.  She’d like to see me.  She said – “

Harry clears his throat as a distraction to the fingers he has buried in the thick hair at the nape of Zayn’s neck.

“You’re going and I won’t have you argue,” Harry insists in this almost convincing voice because Harry’s never rude or demanding but, in his own efficient way, he’s convincing when stern enough.

Zayn breathes out a laugh, soaks in the aroma of hot tea and lavender body wash.  _Soothing_ is what it is.

“But – “

Harry hisses, thumps gentle knuckles like a punch to Zayn’s ribs.  “No.  I’m not letting you become a sad heartbreak song, bro.  It’s ridiculous.  See your mummy, at least.  If you’re not going to fix this thing with Liam – “

Zayn curls inward a little, squeezes his eyes tighter and it’s different when someone else says it out loud.  It’s so much more deprecating than when the words are between a bathroom mirror and red, red eyes.

“Fix something in your life, Malik,” Harry warns with fingers shifting calmer than his tone.

“You fix summat,” Zayn groans back, knocking Harry away with a mild grin.  “Or have you forgotten you and Lou – “

The front door swings open and a chorus of ‘On My Own’ from that one stage play Louis loves stops him.  He swings around to watch Louis walk in, beaming, blue eyes the right shade of the ocean.  He’s carrying a bouquet and dressed in one of his best Oxfords and that wicked smirk on his lips reminds Zayn of getting high and singing Taylor Swift at the top of their lungs at two in the morning.

“Tommo,” Zayn smiles with a wobble to his voice.

Louis flips him off with a grin and eases down on his knees between Harry’s legs and shoves the cheap flowers at his face before twisting his fingers around Harry’s.

The incredulous expression on Harry’s face is hidden behind a collage of pinks, reds, and daylight blues and Louis hums the opening bars of some Elton John number before surging up to press a rough kiss to Harry’s lips.

“You are not leaving me, you stupid curly-haired angel,” Louis says against Harry’s mouth with a quick tongue and something desperate cracking the surface, “I’ve already had a wonderful lunch with a real estate agent and spent a dreadful morning at the banks and put an offer up on that dumb house we _both_ want.”

Harry’s eyes go wide, a taffy like smile on his lips and he leans down a little to meet Louis halfway for another kiss.

“And we’ll take trips to the city on the weekends because you love me that much,” Louis adds, grinning even after Harry rolls his eyes, “And I reckon we’ll have to break all of the rules because I refuse to get married during the summer like common twats.  We will have a December wedding and celebrate my birthday too and, when all of the paperwork is done, we’re gonna adopt some sickeningly fantastic child from Singapore – “

“ _Malaysia_ ,” Zayn teases, hiding half of his giggle into his tea.

“Are you quite finished?” Louis hisses but there’s something incredibly fond in his eyes when Zayn nods back.  He turns to Harry and thumbs away those microscopic tears Harry keeps biting at his lip to prevent.  “And every stupid, fucked out thing that you want, I want too.”

They chase kisses with embarrassingly sweet words and manic laughter and Zayn cuddles away just to watch.

“Malik,” Louis groans with half of his tongue between Harry’s lips, “Get the fuck out so I can shag my future husband.  There’s a happy ending waiting for you somewhere in the middle of London and, trust me, he is the one thing you can’t live without.”

The corners of his mouth, against his will, twitch and he rests his cup of tea on the end table.  He slips on a stolen denim jacket from Liam’s closet and huffs through two more cigarettes through the streets while watching the sun and not thinking of how _inadequate_ it is to some boy’s dumb smile.

 

|+|

 

The corner café he meets his mum at is the same one she drug his entire family to during a winter holiday in London when he was eight years old.  He can still remember the dozens of marshmallows crowding his mug of hot chocolate with the flakes of snow decorating the worn overhead umbrellas and the circular tables are a little unsteady now but the atmosphere is a welcome feeling –

It’s home, so far from Bradford and in an alternate universe and something shakes the dust from his lungs when she looks up from a newspaper with a smile.

There’s cardboard cups of organic coffee waiting on them and their corner table is rusted but has a nice view of Hyde Park.  She orders up sugary scones, greets him with a kiss to the cheek and a long hug.  He balances a hand on the small of her back, leans down while she presses up on her toes to close the gap and he’ll never forget the way she always smells of cinnamon and cardamom and delicious spices from their small kitchen in Bradford.

“Sunshine,” she gasps, shaking a little with arms curled around his neck.

He bites his lip and breathes into her hair for a long moment and the short stabs along his chest wilt when she draws back with a grin.

It takes them a few bites and long sips before they talk and he feels so much younger under her gaze.  He destroys his quiff with his fingers, fringe falling in his eyes, freshly shaven jaw tensing every time she quietly admonishes him for sipping too loudly.  Her foot knocks against his calf under the table and he slouches just to disguise his grin.

“You’re all over the papers back home,” she tells him with that little arch to her eyebrow he remembers from staying out too late during the school year.  “Quite the lad, he is m’love.  Very fit.  Beautiful smile.”

Zayn squirms in his chair, cheeks already stained a riotous crimson.

“At least it’s not for setting fire to the school gym or getting caught spray painting the brick walls,” Tricia hums with pouty lips.

“I was _sixteen_ – “

“Fourteen,” she corrects with a wrinkled brow.  “And such a good kid until that Ant and Danny.”

Zayn groans into his coffee, adds a spoonful or _six_ of sugar that she clucks at before adding her own.

“He makes you happy?” she wonders, tilting her head at him.

He looks down, stirs his coffee, attempts to find brave enough words for her.  They twine on the roof of his mouth and he scrunches his nose at the feeling – at the numbness.

“I reckon,” he replies with a stretched voice.

“Oh love,” she grins and her fingers drag over the shaky table to rub at his knuckles.  “It’s that deep?”

He blinks up, abashed and nervous, twisting his lip between his teeth until she scowls.  He sucks the flesh dry of blood and the air between them floats like heavy smoke.

“I s’ppose it is,” he admits with a rush.

She nods, still smiling, still stroking the nerves in his hand calm.

“It’s not an awful thing, Zayn,” she tells him, leaning back some with her fingers still splayed over the back of his hand.  He nudges up into the touch while she watches the blue sky, the echoing birds.  “I was like that once – with your baba.  So unsure and I had a career in mind, sunshine.  I wanted more for myself and he was so – “

“Distracting,” Zayn inserts, looking down again and the stretch of this silly jumper stolen from Liam over his spare knuckles keeps haunting him.

She laughs, sweet and unaffected by his frown.  “Incredibly.  He was just so certain and, my gosh, such a wonderful man.  And, after I let myself fall, I never regretted it.  Oh Zayn, not once.”

The little stitch of enchantment, like she’s still sixteen and still daydreaming and still so unsure, bends around her voice and he watches her through his long eyelashes until he can’t find any scratches in her armor.

“A few people have been calling around about you,” Tricia says when they’re too quiet, when their coffee starts to go cold, “Some of those agencies that wanted you when you were younger.  A few mates who’ve seen you online.  A couple of offers, I presume.”

He bites into his lip again and she pulls a wrinkled up paper from her purse to slide to him.  There’s a dozen numbers scrawled across it with names and contacts and e-mails and she sighs out a smile for him.

“I wanted you happy,” she confesses when he stares up at her, “but you were so young and your baba had a foundation below him before he started chasing silly dreams.  And you – oh my sunshine, you weren’t ready.”

That large, monstrous beast that used to howl from his chest whenever she called him _young_ and _immature_ and _incapable_ of handling some stupid career in modeling refuses to wake at her words.  No, it slumbers and shrinks under his heart and he nods for her.  He turns his palm up for her nails to scratch over, the wind tossing her hair out of place.  He reaches to fix it and she’s still so warm, still the woman who sung him to sleep in that off-key voice that he couldn’t get enough of.

“Maybe now,” she whispers, beaming.

“Maybe now,” he nods back, his mouth stuttering into something resembling a smile.

The wind kicks a subtle song between them, between their next cups of coffee, and little conversations about his father, a few of his mates back home, about the bookshop and his mum listens intently when he stumbles on and on about some boy with round eyes, goofy grins, and hands meant to harm but gentle softly over the skin of his neck when they’re alone.

“You don’t have to rush anything, Zayn,” she insists, cupping his hand between hers, “Some things are worth figuring out.”

He nods spare fingers twisting his coffee.

She leans back with a laugh, sipping at her own cup.  “And you’ll be home for the holidays this year, sunshine.  I’m cooking chicken tikkas and masala chops, loads of other things and I expect you to have a certain Olympic boxer over for all of your cousins to cry over.”

Something heavy smears over his cheeks and he buries his grin in the hood of his jumper but he can’t tug away from her fingers or the earthy glow of her smile.  Instead, he nods and laughs before whispering, “D’ya know how gangster you are, mum?”

She snorts with a confidence in her shoulders, a crooked smile that reminds him so much of –

 _Of being in love_.

“Shut it, you,” she whines, smacking his shoulder.  “Now go over there,” she adds, jerking her head towards the park and it’s the first time he takes in the scenery, “and go say hello to your sisters.  Safaa has been dying to see you for hours now.”

He grins and finds her amongst all of the green, chasing butterflies while Waliyha perches on a bench taking selfies with Doniya snuggled around her.  There’s a stutter in his next breath and a tight grip around his lungs and everything relaxes when she nudges him out of his chair.

It’s the eye of a tornado or the clear sky after a hurricane.

It’s the calm.

 

|+|

 

It’s one of those early Monday mornings when the sky is the right texture between euphoric and symbolic and _breathtaking_ , with the sun a premature fireball in the distance and the clouds tinted pink by the background, that Zayn finds Liam waiting outside of the bookshop with a cup of coffee and a half-smile.

“Hey you,” he says with a sleep-drag to his voice, pushing the cup between Zayn’s unsteady fingers – though he won’t admit that part – and pressing into the doorframe with his dimples exposed under this raw light.  “Louis called and – “

Zayn’s shoulders brush against his chest in the small space to slide the key into the deadbolt and the heady scent of a cup from his favorite coffee shop cheats a smile across his lips –

One that he hides in the collar of his denim jacket, flicking away the remains of his morning cigarette and lowering his eyes as he shoves the door open.

He doesn’t invite Liam in, not with words, but he grunts and tickles fingers to the inside of Liam’s wrist until he follows.

The shop is still a little dim around all of the corners, wrecked with the dusty aroma and old novels and the still-rising sun leaves orchid blossom shapes over all of the shelves and the hollows where he knows the light will swell brightest later on.  There’s still empty cups on the counter from some promotional event Mr. Cowell had to trick investors into keeping the shop open and worn copies of _Harry Potter_ strewn across the floor from a pack of children with nothing better to do than waste away their pre-summer bliss.  It’s a cool draft from the shaky air conditioner vent and so much like home that he almost forgets Liam’s there.

 _Almost_.

He omits a smile when he finds Liam staring at him with that certain kind of fondness reserved for children and theme parks.  Instead, he lifts the lid of his coffee, licks into the serendipitous flavor and waits until Liam crowds in closer.

Their hips knock gently from where they’re perched on the counter, little skims of muscles brushing that ignites this fire underneath Zayn’s bones.  He’s sipping his coffee in their silence and the radio is still on, crackling little noises in their background right between their calm breaths.

Zayn can sniff the peppermint from Liam’s gum, watches the way the silly snapback on his head hides his honeycomb hair, admires the stubble lining his jaw and the stretch of his birthmark and his lips quirk up for a small grin.

“Tommo says – “

“I heard you’re training again,” Zayn interrupts because he can’t bear to know what secrets Louis has revealed or how long their talks have been or if they’ve mentioned those test shots Zayn did down at some London studio two nights ago.

Liam swallows, his lips straining against a frown that doesn’t happen when Zayn scratches a few fingers over fresh bruises.

“It’s all the papers are talking about,” Zayn adds, dashes of a hopeful smile to ease Liam’s tense muscles.

“Yeah,” Liam breathes, shoving in a little closer.  “Is that alright?”

Zayn shrugs in this near careless way but he’s borrowing dramatics from Louis and incapable looks from Harry and everything close to the surface wants to kiss Liam.  He wants to hold his jaw open with his tongue and softly learn the pressure of his lips again.  He can’t help this itch to thread his fingers through Liam’s hair, find out how thick it is now, burn his skin along Liam’s scruff until it’s an angry pink.

He swallows a little more coffee with their knees rubbing.  He puts a little concentration on the swooning in the distance, the _‘you said someday we might when I’m closer to your height ‘til then we’ll knock around endlessly,’_ and he can’t help mouth the next part – ‘ _you’re all I need’_ – into his coffee.

“It makes you happy,” he says after the burn in his throat subsides.

“You make me happy,” Liam says immediately and Zayn blinks up, waits for the blush to burn Liam’s cheeks or the hand to cup the nape of his neck or all of those little details from that first day that give him away.

But Liam is _courage_ and _bravery_ and a steeliness like he’s unwilling to back down from the war rather than surrendering to a battle.

Zayn snorts, looks away but his auxiliary fingers follow their own method and curl around Liam’s wrist, just under the sleeve of his loose Henley – the one that exposes a beautiful collarbone, the little discolored bruises near his shoulder, tan skin.

“I’m sorry,” Liam whispers, pressing his forehead to Zayn’s temple until the touch sizzles.

“For what?” Zayn laughs but knocks back, shudders through a long exhale.

“Everything,” Liam mumbles and it’s so honest, so completely Liam.

It’s a daydream and he’s read about this – the penultimate.  The last few chapters before the start of something brilliant.  The closure.

The breath before _‘and they lived happily – ‘_

And _yes_.  Yes, this time.

His clarity kicks in a second after another sip and Liam steals the cup for his own swallow before Zayn turns just slightly to brush the taste along the seam of Liam’s lips.  It’s unexpected, far from calculated, not intended.  But he can’t quit the endorphins in his system or the dopamine that comes with that silly grin or just those hands – bruised, calloused, rough everywhere except the palms – on his shoulder.

He can’t stray from the _‘don’t you see me now? I think I’m falling for you’_ in his head, repetitive like the lightning before the beginning of a thunderstorm.

“Hey,” he giggles with their lips still colliding and his fingers knocking that snapback off of Liam’s head.  “This used to be casual.”

Liam laughs back, noses brushing.  “And you didn’t use to have a title but I was sat with a room full of reporters the other day and I said you were – “

 _‘Zayn is my silly love story and I dunno what that means,’_ he remembers and he read all of the headlines and watched the varied angles of Liam’s dopey smile on YouTube in the dark of his bedroom and almost had Niall splice the audio just for him.

But that would be _pathetic_.  And, now, he’s so, so willing to be just that for these fingers behind his ear and in his hair and across the fantail at the top of his spine.

“S’not the worst I’ve been called,” Zayn teases, admiring those dreamy crinkles around Liam’s eyes.

Liam snickers and kisses and swallows all of Zayn’s wasted breaths with a warm mouth.

“Louis said you were,” Liam rushes between firmer brushes of lips.

“Yeah,” Zayn replies, even without the rest, even with the _‘I’ll take you one day at a time, soon you will be mine’_ haunting him from behind.

“You’re pursuing modelling?”

“No,” Zayn huffs because it’s not what he was thinking.

He was thinking more along the lines of _‘yeah I’ll run away to another piece of this world with you because without you, nothing feels sufficient’_ but he leaves the poetry behind for a long gaze and a thumb at the corner of his mouth.

“A little bit,” he admits, pressing their foreheads together.  “Got some calls, a few offers.  Not because of you and what we – “

“Because you’re gorgeous,” Liam interrupts and he fumbles with his next grin, looks a little nervous, like a sixteen year old, like that boy stammering and searching for _the Time Traveler’s Wife_ and –

Zayn laughs into their messy kisses, hooks a few fingers into that loose collar to find Liam’s accelerated heartbeat.

“Maybe we could start again or start over – “

Zayn lets out an embarrassing whine with his fingers stuttering over Liam’s birthmark.  He shakes his head, drifts on _‘I don’t wanna be your friend I wanna kiss your neck’_ until it bleeds through his system.

“I think I’m in love with – “

And Liam sucks in a sharp breath, dizzying smile on his lips when Zayn adds _you_ and he knows this part – _the clincher_.  That _alive_ feeling.

The cheesy line that’s been repeated a million times in a hundred different films in over a thousand contexts for nearly a century.

But he can’t quite escape how freeing it feels when Liam repeats it back with a grin under the halo of the sunlight and his hands over Zayn’s unsteady heart.

 

|+|

 

They kiss until their lips are bruised and the music dies out and anxious customers knock at the glass of the door.

And he’s more than a little caught on the way Liam uses the back of his hand to wipe away excess saliva, the way they both flush but twine their fingers together and unlock the door, hiding away in _their corner_ until their hearts slow and this doesn’t feel like drowning.

It feels like floating in the clouds, metaphorical or simply as daft as that sounds.

For once, Zayn doesn’t seem to care.

 

|+|

 

“You’re late,” Liam says when Zayn shoves backstage with a product-heavy quiff and a vintage t-shirt to match his shredded jeans and he instantly smothers kiss to Liam’s neck to drown out the _‘again’_ that follows.

An entire year later and he can’t stop this flutter in his heart when Liam’s fingers chase up his spine and a thumb locates the smooth bone of his collar and the way their hips stitch together whenever they kiss like this.

He laughs at the way Liam grimaces at the nicotine taste on Zayn’s tongue, brushes fingers over his hairline to catch the sweat and, when he looks careful enough at it, he can see all of his own little bruises to match the marks from Liam’s last fight over his shoulder and collarbones.  He bites a fresh imprint to the side of Liam’s neck – where it’s unnoticeable under his shirt and he’ll suck it bright red later, under a heavy moon and between their sheets – before pulling out of Liam’s embrace.

“Harry and Lou are already in the crowd,” Zayn tells him, trying to fix Liam’s hair and he ignores all of the people in the dressing room watching them because, fuck, Liam is so _distracting_ like this –

With this tan skin and unshaven jaw and large hands fretting at the thought of fleeing Zayn’s hips.

“Niall rung me up,” Liam adds, flicking at Zayn’s immovable hair, “Said he and Josh are gonna be late because – “

Zayn smirks immediately.  “Because they had to have a quick shag in the car on the way?”

“A blowjob with the partition rolled up, actually,” Liam laughs, pulling at the hem of Zayn’s shirt.  “Josh ruined his trousers.”

Zayn tries not to mouth the words against Liam’s lips when they lean in for a quick kiss but the vibrant brush of Liam’s giggle unravels him and he knows, indefinitely, he’ll never get over this feeling –

Stupid storybook endings and silly opening lines and three words used in varied contexts but always meaning the same thing.

And he’ll never get over this senselessly crooked grin he has on his lips every time Liam stammers and blushes and sets twitching fingers across Zayn’s skin.

“Weekend at Lou and Harry’s house soon?” Zayn offers while peeling off his shirt, sliding into the clothes set out for him by the designer and Liam helps him into his slacks just because.

“They’ll make us paint the nursery again,” Liam whines but he’s grinning and lifting the zip while Zayn fumbles with a few buttons on the shirt.  “Louis says he wants yellow this time – “

“ _Sunshine yellow_ ,” Zayn corrects, dragging his lips over Liam’s neck just to see the goosebumps follow the wet trail.

“ – because it’s a neutral color even though we all know they’re getting a boy,” Liam huffs, pinching the tight skin around Zayn’s belly when he refuses to stop raking his teeth over the birthmark.

“He’s an idiot,” Zayn laughs, steady fingers fixing Liam’s hair and he catches sight of almost healed skin around Liam’s knuckles from his match in Greece, their trip to Venice for his last photo shoot and so Liam could train in peace for his next medal in Rio de Janeiro.

Liam threads their fingers together after Zayn slides into the coat with the fancy tails and the tight fit around his shoulders – _like extra skin_ , he thinks with a grin – before tugging him towards the door.  He drapes a kiss underneath Zayn’s jaw, whispers _‘I finished the book, finally’_ and Zayn lights up instantly.

He nuzzles back, remembers Liam laid across a canopy at the edge of summer trying to work his way through words he didn’t understand with Zayn’s glasses on his head and board shorts and that trip to the islands was worth sand between his toes for hours while trying to get the right pose while Liam stared at him from afar.  It was worth the burn on his shoulders and Liam dragging him into a surf he was terrified of and the lazy kisses after midnight when Zayn would explain all of the little misinterpreted parts of the book that Liam still couldn’t comprehend.

“What’s next?” Zayn asks under his breath, incapable of disguising his grin when Liam leans down to smear a kiss over his temple.

“Something by Stephen King?” Liam offers and Zayn’s heart skips a few beats just for that uncertain grin.  “I heard he’s quite good.”

“Oh babe,” Zayn groans but tickles a few kisses to the corner of his mouth.  “You are complex, Leeyum.  Maybe a little Agatha Christie?”

“Never heard of her and – “

Zayn barks out a protesting noise and Liam kisses him quiet with a smirk.  They stumble out of the door and into a parade of flashing cameras in the long hall because the press is insistent, even behind the scenes at stupid fashion shows in the center of London.

“Mr. Malik!”

“Over here Liam!”

“Is it true – “

“Please tell us,” some blonde with her microphone stretched out to them and a camera snapping off a dozen shots of Liam smiling into his neck, a hand firm to the small of Zayn’s back, a whispered _‘go ahead handsome, all of this is for_ you _and not me’_ that’s meant to be encouragement but it only makes Zayn want to shove Liam back into the dressing room for a long blowjob and licking him open with a furious tongue.

She clears her throat loudly to draw his attention over the shouting and he fixes his eyes to her when she says, “Tell us the rumors are true, Zayn.  Everyone is dying to know, at Liam’s last fight, where that ring on your finger came from and is it – “

Zayn ducks his head, cheeks stained an unmatchable pink.  He wiggles his free fingers, the cool metal from a black tungsten ring still foreign to him –

And he remembers a foggy London night, under a canopy of sheets with silly scented candles and a hot bath waiting on them and Liam crawling on his knees with a black box.  He remembers shaky hands sliding the metal around his left ring finger, whispered words of memorized poetry and sweet promises, a shared cup of coffee afterwards and lube smeared between their thighs with a repeated _‘yes’_ on Zayn’s tongue to every question Liam asked.

An overwhelming yes to the _‘can we spend the rest of our lives together?’_ and he won’t ever, ever forget that.

Liam leans in, tickles a smile to the shell of his ear that unsettles everything else he’s been controlling.

“Payno – _Liam_ gave it to me,” Zayn admits, shyly, jerking his head towards Liam.  “It’s sort of a – “

 _A happy ending_ , he thinks before the crash of more questions and the glare from blinking stars behind his eyelids.

“It’s whatever you think it is,” Liam speaks up, crowding around Zayn with hands wrapped around Zayn’s waist and a stubbly chin on his shoulder.  “Just like us.”

Zayn smiles at that – so reminiscent of that goofy, stumbling kid he met too long ago in the middle of a bookshop – and listens to the howl of more questions that they refuse to answer.  He looks over his shoulder at those sunlight gold eyes crinkling, feels calloused fingers brush over the ring like a reminder, a promise.  It steals a little of Zayn’s breath and he presses back into Liam.  Into his comfort.  Into his storybook ending.

Into his _‘and they lived happily ever – ‘_

Well, something like that.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope the ending (or all of it) wasn't horrible. I found it appropriate to end it like that because, well, this is _not_ just some love story, aha.
> 
> I'm sure there are better versions of Boxer Liam and semi-Model Zayn out there... I just wanted to take a stab at a challenge. But thank you for taking the time out to read it! It was a fun adventure.
> 
> Check me out on Tumblr if this fic didn't scare you away [here](http://jmcats.tumblr.com). I'm decent at replying to messages so don't be afraid.
> 
> Also thanks for the kudos and major love on all of my fics. All of you, the whole lot, are truly ace! =)
> 
> xx Jesse


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